"In February, 2024, German police discovered a rare political specimen behind the door of an apartment in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Claudia Ivone, sixty-five years old, appeared to live a quiet existence. She practiced capoeira, tutored children, and helped people draft letters to the authorities. She also possessed a Czech submachine gun, a dummy grenade launcher, a cache of ammunition, a quarter of a million euros in cash, and a kilogram of gold."
"She stands accused of participating in a string of armed robberies, thought to have been undertaken with two other R.A.F. members, and faces a charge of attempted murder relating to a heist. She is also suspected of terrorist operations, including a sniper attack on the U.S. Embassy in Bonn in 1991, in protest against the first Gulf War. In the courtroom, Klette has drawn scrutiny for wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh."
West German radicals, disillusioned after 1968, forged alliances with Palestinian militants, sharing training, safe houses, and arms. The Red Army Faction engaged in bank robberies, hijackings, attacks on NATO, and coordinated with Middle Eastern groups for logistics and ideology. Arrests, trials, and clandestine operations persisted into the 1990s and 2000s, exemplified by arrests like Claudia Ivone (Daniela Klette) and charges including embassy sniper attacks and armed robberies. Public reactions grew sharply divided, with symbols like the Palestinian kaffiyeh becoming controversial in contemporary Germany. Revolutionary aims largely failed, leaving a legacy of transnational extremism and unresolved political trauma.
Read at The New Yorker
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