The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1078: The Baader–Meinhof Gang (Rote Armee Fraktion) - Part 3 - The Finale - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

51 MinutesPG -13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas concludes a series in which he seeks to put into context the intention and activities of the Red Army Faction/Baader–Meinhof Group. In this episode he discusses Horst Mahler and the remaining actions of the Baader-Meinhoff Gang.Thomas' SubstackThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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and got to wrap up the road army fraction, huh? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. All right, well, where are we going with this? I wanted to drop a little bit of biographical information about Horstamauer because I think he's kind of the key to understanding, not just kind of like the post-war ideological culture in divided Germany,

but he's sort of the key to understanding the German right as it exists today. and I'm very I support alternative for Deutschland entirely I think they're doing great things

I'm not like putting shade on them but the fact is if they continue to gain ground they're just gonna they're just gonna be banned okay

like any any truly like right wing tenancy in the Bundes Republic just just gets unceremoniously banned okay so considering that

there was there's a radical just kind of intrinsic to any to any kind of like right wing tenancy you know during the Cold War as well as today but during the Cold War

you know whether you were on the right of the left there was there was situations in places like Italy and to a lesser degree in France where like a true like hard right was tolerated some of that owed Operation Gladiot type intrigues

which is a whole like other topic that, you know, we could devote three episodes to. Part of that I go to the fact that some of these EU states, what became EU states, I mean, then it was just, you know, the EC adjacent countries, you know, they had to tread somewhat lightly. Like, you didn't want to come down too hard on anti-communist elements, you know, lest you kind of offer the appearance of ingress of of enemy dialectics into into the political discussion.

West Germany was in a strange position. You know, like we talked in the first episode, I think, about why Andres Bader especially, but Elytie Meinhov

and some of the other kind of core personality of the first Root Army fraction were so fixated on Vietnam. It's not just because this was the television era when

for the first time the civilized world was truly kind of plugged in to like a common visual experience. But the Bundes Republic it really was this like occupied, you know,

client state of America in a way that no other country was. Like not even Japan was, only the kind of the cultural barriers there. So, you know, and when you consider too that the Bundes Republic was literally

like the front line of the Cold War, and it was clear that they were basically going to absorb the brunt of Warsaw Pact assault, including nuclear weapons, you know, if and when war came,

and in those days it seemed very probable that war would arrive. Like, This is why, like, Vietnam was so much on their mind, okay? Like, they weren't, they weren't just being, like, virtue signaling fools or something, or they weren't just trying to score points with, you know, kind of the, um, the international peace movement. Like, they weren't on that tip at all, like, especially the road dummy fraction types.

They had almost, like, Sorrelian sort of enthusiasm for violence. Okay, so that's important to understand. Um, and secondly, you know, I, I'm not saying this to repeat myself for its own sake, but the degree to which, um, any sort of radical or revolutionary or dynamic tendency, especially, you know, in, among young people and youth cultures, you know, things like that, tendencies like that, they're always kind of confined to, uh, the zeitgeist, okay, and the spirit of the age, all right? So it wasn't just that, it wasn't even that people, you know,

I mean, academic types would think this way, but it's not like, it's not like guys and girls like prone to, prone to radical direct action. It's not even like they were thinking like, oh, you know, national socialism and fascism was a disaster and it's evil. So we, we've got some moral obligation to kind of take up the red banner. Yeah, there were some people who thought that way, but by and large, the only really conceivable modality of revolt or revolutionary activity was either, you know, Marxist, Leninist, or adjacent to that. You know, like the degree to which, you know, an above board, if, you know, very much outside the law, you know, guerrilla tenancy. Like, it wasn't really conceivable for such a tendency on the right to emerge, okay?

It just wasn't. You know, I can't emphasize that enough. You know, I realize I'm, I realize I'm very much a Hegelian and some people disagree with that. But I, but, you know, examples of this phenomenon are a legion, you know, not just in the Buddhist Republic of the Cold War. But obviously, that's kind of the most striking. pure like example of that. And I come back to the person as of course to Mahler again and again. I think he's an interesting

guy, but he's kind of like the distilled essence of that tendency. It in Maler's background, he was older than his comrades. He was born in 1936. In

Salacio. His father had been a dentist and a dedicated national socialist. He attended the Free University of Berlin, and then he immediately joined a Thuringia Association, which was an old school right-wing student fraternity. You know, this is a kind of fraternity that guys like Caldrunner joined. Okay, you know, but then immediately after graduation,

he um you know in his grad student immediately after taking is you know with the equivalent of his undergrad degree he joined the member he joined the socialist student body you know and he started participating in these protests against you know nuclear weapons being based in in the boonis republic you know now this led some people to say like oh he was he was some sort of intelligent spook

I don't think that's the case at all and there's not really any evidence to that. Like what Maller was doing was, you know, like I said, it's my belief the guy was always a national socialist. He was looking at like what's possible, you know, within the political culture that he was situated. Okay. And everybody on the real right wing in the, in the Bundes Republic, you know, whether you're talking about Otto Riemer, Or whether you're talking about Hans Rudel, you know, or any of these, or any of these guys who constituted the early, you know, like Socialist Reich Party, Socialist Reich Party, which became like the NPD later. Like these guys all favored, like a demilitarized Germany for obvious reasons. Okay. You know, not just because that would spare Germany from destruction and event of, of war between the United States and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, Warsaw Pact, but also it would liberate the political culture from

from from these confiding parameters. You know, and as I'm sure people know, you know, Stalin, the famous Stalin memo, which, you know, the American State Department wouldn't even entertain, you know, Stalin proposed a totally demilitarized Germany, you know, that, and a constitution that guaranteed, you know, absolute neutrality. But of course, that would have allowed, if not facilitated, you know, complex interdependence with the Soviet Union, you know, and the position has always been of the American regime, that that's got to be prevented at all costs. I mean, look at that that's in large part

what underlies like this, this war against Russia with Ukraine as a proxy. I mean, look at, look at the terrorist attack on European energy infrastructure and, you know, the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. Okay, so I don't think, I think if one understands kind of the variables and the ideological tendencies

that, you know, underlie what one's priorities are if they are a national socialist or any kind of right-wing partisan in the Buddhist Republic then is now. I think Mahler's trajectory is that conspiratorial.

In 1963, Mahler, he took his law degree. He set up a legal practice in Berlin. And his specialty was basically industrial and labor law.

you know um and he was he was very successful with that okay it's um and he he continued to immerse himself um and kind of student radicalism obviously because he was older now and a professional man like in sort of like a sponsorship and mentoring capacity you know he began providing like legal advice to a lot of these people um you know providing them funding that a lot of them desperately needed because, you know, these these guys of NGOs, I mean, not just student organizations, but any kind of NGOs, particularly in those days, that weren't adjacent, um, the bond regime were, you know, always like start of cash and, um, and things of this sort. I mean, that was, uh, you know, this was a consistent, um, activity that he was, uh, that he was immersed in.

And when we last left off, and we were talking about how the core of the road army fraction, you know, they ended up, after after, uh, Andreas Bader was sprung from jail, you know,

uh, they, they ended up, um, they ended up traveling to the Middle East, you know, through, by way of East Berlin and, um, you know, owing to their contact on the ground, Said who'd been a,

who was the son of a of a political science professor of some prestige. You know, like I said, like it's never been clear exactly kind of like what Saeed's, like a resume is, but he's been harassed by security forces for decades. I believe he's still alive, but

I believe that Horstamaller like facilitated these these sort of contacts, okay? And in those days, in those days, Fata was the dominant element of the PLO. It's an imperfect analogy, but the PLO is a war. I mean, they fought a war with each other about a decade ago. But it was always a tense alliance between Hamas and Fata.

And Fata traditionally was a secularist. you know, Marxist-Leninist-adjacent, non-state actor. An imperfect analogy would be what became combined loyalist military command in Northern Ireland between the UVF and the UDAUFF, okay? But in those days, you know, Fata was definitely, like, the dominant element. And their competitor was the popular. Front for Liberation of Palestine, which had been founded by

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Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. the PFLP enjoyed a lot of support from the East Block and their tactical and strategic orientation were both how much oriented towards a global kind of military politic what I mean by that is they were very very active in Africa they were very very active in Europe you know they were very very active uh in Indonesia for a time you know they're they said that you know we've got a we we've got to treat us as an

international struggle you know yes the liberation of Palestine obviously first and foremost is you know it's got to be our the kind of of our of our military activity

but this has to be international and character you know and for those to remember, those were students of Cold War history, the bombing of the discotheque in West Berlin that killed three American soldiers and wounded a few dozen people, you know, the LaBelle discotheque,

which was a known hangout for U.S. occupation forces. There's the popular front for liberation at Palestine General Command that pulled that off. you know, very much hand in glove with the Stasi. Okay, but Fata, PLO, you know, they felt

they felt like they had something to prove in this regard, okay? They felt comparatively, like, very provincial. You know, they felt like they were kind of like losing the propaganda battle in the court of world opinion, okay? So the guy, like,

I'm speculating here, but I think the facts if one kind of reads me in the lines, the man like Horstamaller who by this time again he wasn't the kid he was in his 30s you know he was a he was a well-off attorney you know with a with a law practice in Berlin

I believe he spoke a few languages you know him approaching Fata and saying you know I have these like young people and they're very much committed to the revolution and you know they they want to learn basically

they basically want to learn like guerrilla warfare from you. I think that would have been like very appealing to them. You know. Now this first iteration of the Rottermy fraction, like as we've talked about it, had many problems. Bader himself,

Andre's Bader, I think, was something of a crazy person. He was a he was a thrill seeker. He was probably a psychopath. you know, Gundraud and Slin

I think was actually very committed and, you know, men and women are different what we've talked about, but female revolutionaries are important. They serve an important role. And people shouldn't be down on them because many of them are very, very, very committed. Okay, like, it's not, like, women aren't weaker than men.

Like, I mean, physically, obviously, there's, you know, a disparity there. But I think Gondren, Encelain, especially going to her kind of pite his background, was, uh, was, was probably kind of like the most stable of, of that coterie. Um, oh, Riki, mine off, um, was kind of, uh, was kind of a cliche, you know, like, uh, middle class lady who, you know, you know, kind of was easily misled. I believe, you know, this was not the best mentioned material around which to build a revolutionary coterie. And later that changed, later iterations of the Root Army fraction, were incredibly effective. And like, as we've talked about, and we'll talk about some more, I, by that, by the 1980s, the third iteration of the RAF had become very much like an implement of the Steyer. you know they were the kind of ops they were pulling off then was they were trying to murder Alexander

Hague and things like this okay like this you're talking about an entirely caliber of people and an entirely an entirely more ambitious operational sensibility but um when the road army fraction arrived um in jordan uh horse Horstumaller was already there. And their hosts, their PLO hosts were originally pretty suspicious of them. Like, not because they thought that they might be ops

who were, you know, they're as double agents or something, but they just weren't convinced they were serious. So initially, they kind of treated them like they were tourists, you know, basically, you know, took them around and kind of filled them with, with political propaganda about, you know, Israeli atrocities, which were true.

I mean, they weren't, you know, this wasn't being confagulated. You know, they'd take them to their rifle range and things like this. They'd, you know, they'd let them sit in on classes about, you know, where they did study things like, you know, Mao's, a red book. this soon caused a fair amount of hostility, but when Bader insisted on being treated like any other

revolutionary cadre, he started he kind of started showing his bourgeoisie colors. Like, um, he, uh, he started, he refused to wear BDUs and caps

you know he'd wear like he'd wear like civilian pants like jeans or like the kinds of like velvet trousers that like hipster types like in those days war like even during like training maneuvers you know so you got this guy like

you know wriggling under barbed wire um like on the training ground like you know wearing his like designer jeans and stuff um the um as I think I mentioned before

the the the fatta had no um they had no problem with uh they had no problem with like training women to fight you know because they had to

you know in any revolutionary circumstance that's uh essential anyway but um you know they obviously like sleeping quarters and stuff

were segregated as were facilities and um Bader and um Meinhauf like refused to accept this you know they presented under the auspices of you know equality between the sexes

but you know like for context a lot of these young a lot of these young Arab fighters you know were like little more than kids like they never even seen like a naked woman before You can imagine how disruptive this was.

And this almost led to the Camp Commandant, who was an Algerian. You know, almost the, almost them, you know, like banning them from the camp and, you know, putting them on a plane back to

Berlin. But Mahler was, was able to, um, kind of like finesse things, at least in the short term. And like, apparently one of the, uh, one of the student types who, um, in the world term refraction, it brought along as a recruit, um, like, uh,

asked why there was no Coca-Cola machines, like, in camp, like, you know, like these people were completely, completely, uh, disengaged from reality. So this was not, I, I emphasized this because, like, was not like an auspicious start to the road downy fraction. It's important to consider that because, like, again, a lot of what you'll read, particularly in the era, I mean, really from the 80s, from like later Cold War, when the IRA, when

the third iteration of it was still active, like, we'll talk about it as if it was this Stasi the kind of squad of terrorists that you know from inception was a sort of highly effective you know cadre element like it's not the case at all

it was a very spontaneous development it was very much an organic development of the kind of Berliner like student culture like the fact that

the Stasi and in my opinion, specifically Marcus Wolf was able to, um, was able to, uh... Pst, did you know? Those Black Friday deals everyone's talking about? They're right here at Beacon South Quarter. That designer's sofa you've been wanting? It's in Seoul, Boe Concept and Rosh Buroix. The Dream Kitchen? Check out at Cube Kitchens. Beacon South Quarter Dublin, where the smart shoppers go. Two hours free parking, just off the M50, exit 13. It's It's a Black Friday secret. Keep it to yourself. There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky.

They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jampacked with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra.

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of which, you know, like Vietnam, I mean, Vietnam was many things. including like a very, very much a conventional war, but there was also an asymmetrical aspect to it. But as these kinds of conflicts, you know, sort of jumped off in earnest, you know, people with partisan leaning, became kind of like more and more habituated to the reality of these things. But this, this was very early on in that kind of conflict cycle. you know and these these Palestinians

I mean for years you know they'd been they'd been living on canned meat you know like military rations um you know stuff from like canned

canned goods from United Nations relief organizations you know they uh they uh they you know like

like fresh meat was and um and vegetables and fruit was, I mean, like, a, you know, it was a luxury to them. You know, so, I mean, this spread a fair amount of resentment, too.

And there was a, uh, there's an anecdote of, uh, apparently, uh, O'Reaky Meinhoff, um, on, uh, on the firing range. Um, an instructor, uh, handed her, uh, a Soviet grenade, which were like, unlike the old Vermach potato masher grenades, these are the ones that they look kind of egg-like,

you know, and you don't screw the cap to free up the ring, you know, and then like you'd pull the ring to pull the pin. So finally instructor showed Ulrichi how to like, you know, to be the cap, you know, to liberate the ring. And then she pulled it and, like, held it as, like, the grenade band of hairs and they asked, like, what do I do now? And, uh, so I'm just going to throw it, throw it. So, really, like, ran for cover. But, um, you know, this is the kind of stuff, uh,

this is the kind of stuff they were dealing with, um, the Palestinians, I mean, like, uh, kind of a, kind of a crazy man. Um, and the person of of Bader and most of the others a lot of a lot of balls

and no common sense whatsoever I do but it would however something that did do I think those who including Andre's Bader himself

the experience in Jordan none of these none of these people except Ulrichi Minov had been a little kid during the war years and so

had Mahler although Mahler was obviously as you know we just discussed had kind of a more sophisticated sensibility in all kinds of ways but the rest of them had no experience of war

or combat um the uh and in this in this Fetian camp where they were training um

you know Israeli bombers were regularly circled the sky um Jordanian troops were uh had established the main line of resistance only a few kilometers away from the camp

um everybody was issued live ammunition at all times because at any time you know the IDF could assault you know so whatever however however cringe some of these antics might have been

um it did uh it did prepare these people for for real combat situations you know in a way that ordinary training could not

um and I think that that is significant too because uh this uh this this this this training um

Lark is a lot of court historians write about it. It was just a sort of like fiasco and kind of like comedy of errors. But, you know, I disagree, man. Like, yeah, there was that aspect of it. But, yeah, if you situate anybody in a combat zone like that, you know, while they're undergoing an intense kind of regiment of, you know, it's only just like very basic, you know, kind of like imagery skills and things and, like, you know, how to read a map and a compass.

and, you know, how to keep your clashedick off clean and how to, you know, how to load it, and how to, you know, use iron sights and things, you know, that, um, learning these practical skills when you're quite literally in a combat zone, um, even if you're not taking hostile fire every day or something. And I, I, I think that that, I think that confers a certain, um, benefit that, They can't easily be quantified by traditional metrics. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back.

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There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end Here goes This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match Exclusively live plus action from the URC The Challenge Cup and much more

That's the URC and all the best European rugby All in the same place Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before On Sports Extra jam-pack with rugby Phew, that is a lot of rugby Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only.

Standard pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At Foot Solutions, we specialize in high-quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics, designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at foot solutions. or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. But also too, because Palestine was very much, it wasn't just the front line of the Arab and Islamic struggle against Israel.

But the Algerian war was still friends. still fresh in everybody's mind and it was still underway in some ways. You know, the, there was a certain prestige factor to, to making contact with the camp commandant and other personages around him, like Abu Hassan, who the Palestinians were on very good terms with and you know the fact that um the fact that um these raf recruits and a particular horse to maillers again like i said he was he was and is basically a political animal you know um the generated enduring um um channels and communication you know and like i said i Von Von Wiener's as well as some other third-right personages,

who quite literally during the Cold War joined the Arab camp. You know, Von Leer himself, he converted to Islam, took the name Omar Amin, served in the court of Nasser. You know, he viewed Islam as the dialectical antithesis of Judaism, and thus, you know, the perfect sort of principle, like, rallying principle in order to defeat, in order to defeat what he perceived as a then-triumphant Jewish dialectic in the zeitgeist. Okay. I'm not saying that, like, Maller was, you know, was thinking these sorts of things like, Von Wiener. years was, but instinctively, I think that he very much was within that, um, you know, like engaged

in that paradigm psychologically. So I said it was to the, uh, really kind of the, the zenith of, uh, of, um, for the first, uh, the first iteration of the RIAF was the hijacking of Lufth flight 181. This was after most of the key personages of the Root Army fraction, the Bader Meinhaw Federation of it,

had been killed or captured, you know, arrested. The security elements of the Bundes Republic had gotten a tremendous um boom.

Um, owing to, you know, these terrorist activities that were underway. And specifically, you know, the Munich situation in 1972, where the Israeli athletes were slaughtered. But Leufthansa Flight 181 on October 13th, 1977. In the summer of 77, and colloquially became known as the German autumn

owing to an epidemic of political violence and this is considered to be kind of one of the most one of the most brazen instances of it for operators from the popular front of liberation of Palestine hijacked

Livedons of Flight 181. And their specific objective was to secure the release of the imprisoned Root Army faction. Okay.

And again, I this is what I was getting at when I was talking about Horstamaller. And what I believe is, is you know, rather profound ability to index

with other revolutionary elements. And like we talked about before, the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, part of their whole grand strategy was to demonstrate an ability to project power globally. You know, and this endured until the end of the Cold War. Interestingly, the Popular Fronts Liberation of Palestine

still exists. I don't know to what to guess. agree, they still abide a Marxist-Leninist program, but they fought on the side of Assad against ISIS. And I believe that they're active in the Yemen Civil War. And there's a militia also under arms in Yemen. that calls itself something like the the armed grouping of

South Yemen or something like that. Now South Yemen was a course was a Soviet client state. It no longer exists, but it was the only Marxist-Leninist Arab state. So it was kind of like a feather in the cap of Warsaw Pact. But I speculated very strongly

that the sudden emergence of these guys like fighting under the banner of South Yemen and clicking up with the PFLP they are very much in a Russian patronage. I think that should be clear. I find that kind of fascinating. But

be as it may there's this spectacular raid to free the hostages on flight Loofedons of Flight 181

The plane ultimately landed in Mogadishu, Somalia and the Somali Army They provided a distraction They detonated this ordinance On the runway In front of the nose of the aircraft So the hijackers rushed to the front the sea was underway and then

these these commandos from GSG 9 you know which is the Bundesfez like special operations element and these British SAS guys you know they've been they've been blew open

um the passenger door um and uh and um and took out the terrorists but um it's pretty much immediately

after like after the like I'm talking like you know days after the the incident the a bunch of the imprisoned REF members

died supposedly by suicide including Andre's Bader Goudroon Inslin John Carl Rasp and

Ingrid Moller who supposedly attempted suicide but survived her injuries but the claim of Maller as well as others was that you know these

these people were murdered by the guards and it was in the immediate aftermath, Helmut Schmidt, who was the consular of the Buddhist Republic. He was hailed as a hero in the Western world for his decision to storm the aircraft and refused to negotiate. And, you know, he...

And interestingly, West Germany and Somalia, like, became very tight after this, like, going to their operational integration militarily. And obviously, like Somalia, you know, having a substantial Muslim population, this was like good PR, but it, it was believed

again by people like Korsmaller and others. Like some sympathetic to the Ruth Army fraction, some not that, you know, that you know, Schmit's people like had

had these road to army fraction prisoners murdered as part of their, you know, basically they're saying like, look, like you're not, no nobody's going to, nobody's going to hijack our planes and hurt our people like to try and, you know, spring motherfuckers like this. We're just going to, we're just not,

we're going to kill them. I think that's, I mean, that's, that kind of thing probably seems like unthinkable today, not because of brutality or something, but, I mean, within the Cold War, the context stuff. but I mean it was um like certain things

like certain things were acceptable um but they just like weren't discussed you know there was kind of like a hush-hush wink wink like aspect to it and I think that's I think that's I think that's pretty clearly what happened also too it's you know the um something that would would change to in the later iterations of the butter of the road

Army fraction. First of all, they became very adept at, at striking, you know, like prestige targets, you know, like businessmen, industrialists, bank presidents. You know, like I said, what was going to be kind of like the feather in the cap, I, I,

I'm not trying to be crass by, you know, discussing an attempted homicide and flipping terms. But, um, kind of like their big, uh, their big coup was going to be, you know, blowing up General L. Hague when he was

Supreme Commander of NATO, it, uh, like, your operational focus very much shifted towards, you know, kind of proceeding as

the vanguard of an occupied country. And that was very different than what the Bader-Mindhoff Federation of the Roald Army fraction was doing. Not only was the initial organization

kind of scattershot on their priorities, but they were very much trying to index with kind of like the global proletarian revolution liberation movement, you know. And like I said, I, Horace de Maller had an outsized impact

on the strategic and operational priorities and him kind of viewing Israel as like the primary adversary of a revolutionary German armed grouping made perfect sense but the fact that later you know the legacy

what was the self an unfight like legacy organizations or success organizations you know their targets became you know the economic like the high financial economic infrastructure, the Buddhist Republic and NATO. You know, I mean, and that's very

I think that very much indexes with an understanding of them being, you know, a DDR client regime. Like the Stasi's notion always was, and this was proper if your ambition

is to discredit the Bundes Republic was to you know for its last and always portray the bond regime as this militaristic

like an American client regime that had no real legitimacy and had no um real support from the body politic you know and that um in and of it, like the, whose existence itself preserved, you know, an elevated state of, uh, arousal, for lack of a better term, of armed forces in theater, because its very existence was dangerously provocative, you know, um, and don't get me wrong. Like, Warsaw-Pag definitely was at war with Israel. They were literally actively at war with Israel.

But, you know, a West German non-state actor element that Warsaw Pact was aiding and abetting and, you know, providing operational priorities to the way like it makes perfect sense that you know their their targets would be NATO officers and um and um

and um and key personages in the West German infrastructure um we can uh that's about all I got on like the Bader Meinhof

iteration we can get into the subsequent um manifestations of this phenomenon if you want to, or if you want to change direction and get in a different topic, we can come back to it, but it's

a huge topic. I've got, like, I'm powering my way through and refresh my recollection. Like, these two volumes on, like, the entire history R.EF, and it felt like halfway through. But I don't,

I don't want to spend too much time on one discrete topic, though I will you want to but that's um something we can come back to if we have a uh a one-off episode we want to do we're already doing that one we're already planning a one-off episode coming up later this week um and then i figure we just probably after that just start on a new topic yeah no that's great and yeah also as we get into um yeah when it was when it's topically appropriate um like to get into like evil archer era cold war I'll come back to it but

I don't want people I mean people are free to criticize me like whoever they want but I mean like I don't want people thinking like okay what the hell like you didn't you know you're only covering you know like basically like one third of the subject it's like um and it's not because I'm like lacking or because I don't realize that there's like a lot more to cover and also I think for at least for our purposes

For my purposes, rather, like I said, I think the person of Horace Mahler is very important. And he's presented as some kind of crank or some kind of opportunist or some people accuse him of being, you know, some sort of intelligence agents who, you know, simply took on the role of a term coat because, you know, his agency's ops became, you know, like neo-Nazis in lieu of communists. that's that's complete nonsense um and i don't i don't see how people the man that k is going to the man went to prison for like five years you know for um for uh quote unquote holocaust denial but yeah i hope uh i hope people this series is been getting a lot of praise and i'm very honored and humbled by that i i hope people uh continue to get a lot out of this um series with this episode. So I'm very, I'm very fortunate

you're willing to invite me on to cover these topics, man. And I want to thank everybody very much for their kind words and constructive feedback. Of course. Do quick plugs and we'll get out of here. Yes, sir. Oh, yeah, too. We got, we also

got to get back to our Mystery Science Fear 3,000 series. Yeah, we'll do that next week. Yeah, man. The best place to find, like the kind of the one-stop site for like all my content is my website. It's Thomas 777.com. Number 7-HMS-777.com. You can find

everything there. My substack, that's where I do long form stuff. That's where the podcast is at. It's real Thomas-777.7.com. You can find me on X, formerly Twitter. um at a real capital r e a l underscore number seven h m as 7777 um i'm on a t gram it's a mind phaser is my tgram it's named after the pod but if you just if you just look for thomas seven seven seven seven seven and tgram like you'll find it um i'm not i'm i i'm active on there every couple days i'm not super active because i'm not a big fan of tgram back in the days when i like literally could not like get a social media account without it being nuked in minutes i relied heavily on it but i am on there um

and yeah that's on instagram and yeah see can each you'll find all right thomas until the next time thank you