Terrorists Then and Now

Germany is said to be a hub for would-be terrorists. In the 1970s, it was also a breeding ground for terrorists, spawning the Red Army Faction (RAF), a group of students and intellectuals who committed a series of murders, kidnappings, and bombing as they planned to engineer a communist uprising by the West German working class. At least 30 people including prominent industrialists and businessmen were killed in RAF attacks in the 1970s and 80s.

The announcement in Germany this week that former RAF terrorist Brigitte Mohnhaupt will be released from jail after 24 years has again sparked the debate on what motivates terrorists and which groups pose a threat.

DW-RADIO spoke to German journalist and terror expert Elmar Thevessen about who the terrorists of today are.

Elmar Thevessen: It's very difficult to find where the threat is coming from because we now are dealing with probably very young people who are in the middle of society, who are usually not moving in the circles that we used to find them in, for example, in extreme mosques or in groups that have been identified as extremist groups. They may radicalize themselves through watching pictures on television, they download the ideology from the Internet, and they also can download manuals for making bombs from the Internet. So it's very hard to identify them and to stop them.

DW-RADIO: What is their source of discontent? What would motivate somebody to become a terrorist today?

It is becoming a bit clearer. Some of the authorities, for example, in Britain, have researched what kind of motivation is driving those people. They found that there are mainly two big reasons. One is a perception of discrimination in society. They feel discriminated against; they feel they don't have the same social and economic chances in society. And the other (reason) is a personal perception of a double standard in foreign policy, where the politicians and the government talk about freedom and democracy and all those values, while at the same time a government might participate or support measures like the Iraq war or Guantanamo or the torture of Abu Ghraib. That is a personal perception, but this mix comes together and might drive them into a radicalization, increase the anger, and in the end maybe lead to attacks in the countries where they live.

How is that different from the situation in the 1970s?

With regards to the motivation, there's not such a big difference. What we saw in the 70s when we had the RAF, the left-wing extremists in Germany, the terrorists, were driven also by a disaffection with the government, with the establishment, plus also the feeling that they (had) to fight against injustices in other parts of the world. But what is different now is that the terrorists are targeting society itself. They might choose soft targets, because it's easier to strike there, and they feel that they can have a big impact if they strike there, whereas the RAF, the left-wing extremists and terrorists back in the 70s usually chose targets among the establishment, for example, bankers or leading members of the government.

What does it take for a terrorist to become active? What drives them over the edge, so they start killing to achieve their aim?

It's a process. You can look at cases (such) as the killing of Theo van Gogh, the director and author in the Netherlands. The guy who killed him worked in social programs in the Netherlands. He tried to change the situation for young immigrants. But he became disaffected for several reasons. One reason was that he got the feeling that whatever he (did) in this area of society, he (didn't) get the support of the government to change the situation for young immigrant. Also, he had a personal feeling that he was discriminated against -- he didn't get a job, he didn't have a future before him -- so that drove him into disaffection that turned into anger and hatred, because what was added was what happened in the world, where he began to see a double standard in, for example, foreign policy. In the end, he killed Theo van Gogh.


That is something that is very difficult to recognize: Where do you have those young people? Where are the situations where they make decisions to go down the path to extremism? That is the place where you would have to stand and come up with arguments in order to stop them (from taking) the path to extremism and terrorism. That is very hard to do.

Turning to terrorism today in Germany, secret service agents here have said that Germany is a breeding ground for would-be terrorists, that there are terrorist cells here and they are able to develop. Do you agree?

Yes, I agree. Of course, they are taking advantage of the freedom that we have in this society, of the democracy, which, in part in going against them, has a very hard time (finding) enough evidence to bring cases to court.

We have an example from last year, where there were some young people who might have planned to blow up a pop concert in Germany. The authorities had some leads. They investigated them. They actually arrested them. They searched their apartments. They didn't find enough evidence there, but they found that obviously there was kind of a motivational breeding ground there. That is something that can happen anywhere in Germany.

For many of those (people) it might lead more to (the decision): we'll travel to other places where we can fight because we feel a higher obligation to fight there, (such as) in Iraq or in Chechnya. But those people might also decide at some point to do something in Western society, or they might return from Iraq, after they have fought there, and they (use) their knowledge to build bombs here, and they might plan an attack and maybe execute an attack in Germany.

Would you say Germany is too tolerant, too scared of coming down hard on suspected Islamist terror for fear of being seen as racist and unjust?

I think there are two problems here. Number one is that it's very hard to find evidence, because that usually is something that develops in the minds of those people. Since we have freedom of speech, it is very hard to use that as evidence in court. Usually in those cases you don't have enough. If you arrest them, if you search their apartments, if you search their computers, you might not actually have enough to get a verdict in court.


Number two is the security structure in Germany has not adjusted yet to this kind of threat. You can see in other countries that usually there are courts and judges who have experience in those kinds of cases and who (deal) with those cases. In Germany, we don't have that. We have, for example, judges who usually come from family law and they might make the decisions in those terrorism cases. I think what is desperately needed is some expertise on the side of the judicial system in Germany in dealing with those cases.

It sounds like the terrorist landscape today is vastly different than the terrorist landscape of the 1970s, that the terrorists are far more sophisticated.

That is not necessarily so. What has changed (is) that it's easier to get what you need. It's easier to get the manuals to make bombs. It's easier to get the material for bombs. And it might be easier to hide in society, because there are more people who might have the same feelings, the same thoughts, extreme views. That has changed. Back then you had a (string) of attacks, and the RAF put out their messages, trying to explain what they wanted to do. They did that before attacks and continuously, (while) the terrorists today do that in secrecy, and they only will talk about the reasons after an attack.

So, ironically in an era of freedom of speech, the terrorists are becoming more secretive and harder to identify, while in the old days they were more clearly defined?

Yes, it was a little easier to identify them, but the core causes, as I mentioned, are very similar to what we have seen in the 70s. It also has something to do (with) where people are recruited today for the kind of extremism that is the biggest threat right now -- basically coming from the same areas where the left-wing extremists recruited their followers in the 70s. They're coming from the areas where there are plenty of social problems, where there is no future for young people -- at least in their perception -- where they have worse chances than others to be successful in a society. Also, as we saw in the 70s, the anti-imperialism that was driving some of the extremists is very similar to what I mentioned as a perception of double standards in foreign policy. So, the motivational reasons might be very similar, but the methods of the terrorists are different.

Wilhelmina Lyfft interviewed Elmar Thevessen (ncy).