The Oppression of Other Meanings

 

Germany's Past became a central

issue for the student movement.

Many began to delve into 

recent History, and 

what they discovered 

astounded them.

Not only had their teachers and 

their parents been involved with

The Nazi Party, but many appeared 

to have taken part in crimes.

There were terrible 

confrontations 

within families.

“There was complete confrontation,

one part of this people against the other.

The Students were convinced 

that what they had uncovered

was a hidden continuity 

with The Third Reich.

Beneath the facade 

of  a Liberal-Democratic country,

The Fascist State had continued, run 

by the very same men and women 

who had administered Hitler's regime.

Then a group emerged 

determined to 

expose  this.

They were led by 

Andreas Baader and 

Gudrun Ensslin.

Their aim was to resist Fascism 

where their parents had failed.

They were known as 

The Red Army Faction.

The Red Army Faction embarked 

on a series of bombings and 

shoot-outs with The Police.

Their strategy was to use

violence to provoke The State

into exposing its true identity.

But as The Violence escalated, 

some of The Terrorist leaders 

began to have doubts.

In trying to expose Germany's 

hidden past, they had unearthed 

something far more complex and 

far more sinister than 

they had bargained for.

Gudrun Ensslin :

I had begun to realise that fighting 

against The State by armed groups 

with this revolutionary strategy 

in mind was bringing up 

Fascistic tendencies in 

the reaction not only of 

The Political Class but 

of The People, too.

We ourselves became, in the same way, 

fascistic as The Fascists were.

We didn't realise that Our Enemies,

Our Opponents, are Human Beings.

This is what is in The Heart of Fascism :

The Oppression of other Meanings,

of the political opposition, and 

oppression means elimination...

..by killing.”

Q. : Was it frightening when You 

realised that was happening?

Gudrun Ensslin :

Yeah, of course.

Awfully frightening.

This was one of the main points 

in the development, the awareness 

that We are from the same stuff 

as The Fascists were.

We understood something.

We understood that Fascism is

a component in ALL of Us.

Q. : Do You Think that's 

What We hid from ourselves 

at the end of The War?

Gudrun Ensslin :

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

We have a picture of ourselves.

We want to be Good, we want 

to be Human creatures with the 

positive thinkings and so on, 

but We are a contradiction 

in ourselves, because 

We don't know how to 

handle this contradiction.

We don't have any means 

to Live with this Evil part 

in ourselves —

In the autumn of 1977, The Leaders 

of The Baader-Meinhof Group 

"committed suicide" in jail.

The attempt to change Germany

by opening up its past was over.

The threatening memories 

were reburied."

"The Memory is A Swamp,

like this building, is built in 

A Swamp, a swampy area.

So, in A Swamp, something 

comes up, makes a sound, 

a noise - bulp - and 

You smell something.

And then, once again, 

The Surface is clean 

and clear, and so this 

Memory comes up 

sometimes, gives a noise,

gives a bad smell and then 

The Surface is clean again."

But then, ten years later,

The Course of European History

suddenly changed.

The Communist Domination 

of Eastern Europe collapsed.

In the summer of 1990, Berlin 

celebrated the dismantling 

of The Wall with a concert 

given by Pink Floyd --

During the preparations,

hidden fragments of 

The Past came to 

The Surface.

In The No-Man's-Land between 

The Two Berlins, a forgotten 

Nazi bunker was unearthed --

It was found by chance

when here Pink Floyd has a 

great spectacle at The Wall in 

the Summer 1990, and they 

telephoned me because, I told them 

before one could find something.

And that was the beginning of The Battle 

for safeguarding this bunker.

And what did you 

find down there?

Can you show us 

some of the things?

Yes, we...

There are some small 

objects, of course.

So, here's A Bayonet —

We only took some samples.

Here, A Silver Spoon. It was 

from The Official Silver.

These fragments, it was 

like a frozen moment 

of History years ago.

This frozen moment of Apocalypse,

The End of History, of 

a certain part of History.

It wasn't just fragments 

of The Nazi Past 

that re-emerged.

As the Cold War came to 

an end, a hidden history 

of Europe was awakened.

Old rivalries and tensions,

suppressed for years,

were rekindled.

With them came the barbarism and 

The Evil that The Good War 

was supposed to have 

banished forever —

REPORTER: 

The infantry then went on 

a foot patrol to look for more

casualties or evidence of atrocities.

They didn't have far to search.

They came upon a house 

in the centre of The Village

where a family of seven had 

died, two in the stairway, 

another five in the cellar.

It's hard to look at some 

of these pictures,

harder to tell the story of

Ahmici without them.

What happened here can frankly notbe shown in any detail,

but the room is full ofthe charred remains of bodies,

and they died in the greatest agony.

It's harder to imagine,

in our continent and in our time,

what kind of people could do this.

I just kept thinking that, you 

know, they were people once.

You know?

And this is, you know, this is 

Europe, 1993, not 1943.

GUNFIRE

The fragments of The Past that 

have re-emerged in Europe are 

frightening because they are 

linked to a time many thought had 

long been buried and forgotten.

But History will not repeat itself.

These forgotten pieces will be 

reassembled to tell a new story.

They will be used to justify the new

political ideas of The Future.

We are at Zero Hour once again.

What The Hell was that?

Maybe something trying to 

force its way into Our World.

CRASHING

SCREAMING