Customer Reviews

Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story, 1963-1993

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The book is simply a time line of the major, and some minor, events that defined the early Baader-Meinhof/RAF. The book is written in a manner that implies you already have at least some knowledge of the RAF. The book is not about the groups politics but simply its actions. Short sweet and helps put everything in chronological order.
On the downside, no time is spent investigating individual events in great detail. The plane touches down then takes right off again. You are given a paragraph or two of info. then next topic. The cover is deciving because it says "1963-1993" but the book only really speaks about the first generation of the RAF. With their deaths in prison a very slim amount of book is left to talk about the actions of the later generations.
A good timeline for someone who already knows about the RAF. Not enough info. for someone new to the topic.

Sadly, what could have been a really cool book (no shortage of fascinating material) is absolutely unreadable due to the poor writing, which makes it impossible to get through the short tome. The author seems pleased with himself, and while I do not doubt his knowledge, the writing is so flawed that the information is presented in a confusing and irritating and unclear manner. Poor.

Was this meant to be a chronology? Or did Vague intend to write in clipped, newsreader style, much as the RAF itself was reported on the TV news? In any case, the book is difficult to follow for anyone who is not familiar with Baader-Meinhof and the Red Army Fraktion, and if you ARE familiar the information is presented in so many snippets that it would seem to me to be annoying.

I was in Germany during the tail-end of the RAF (a period scarcely mentioned in the book) and found myself learning very little more of any relevence than what I had already found out.

There is nothing new here. If you're new to the subject of theBaader-Meinhof gang, you'll get better value from "Hitler'sChildren", even with its innacuracies. This book reads as an almost edited version of that.

The book was a quick overview of the Red Army Faction and the events that took place during their existence. If this book is truly factual, then I am not impressed with Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, nor am I in agreement with their philosophy. It is almost like they did not have a well-planned mission to fight against the "powers that be." The Baader-Meinhoff Gang thought that if they terrorized the capitalists, others would rise up and join them in the fight, but this will not happen unless the People are organized. The idea that I get from this book is that the RAF members had to find some meaning in their lives, so they decided to become terrorists. If you desire to find a country that dislikes communism more than the United States, go to Germany, especially Berlin. Extreme socialism is what the RAF wanted in West Germany. Anyone in the right mind can understand why unrestricted capitalism is not a good thing, and having the United States pressing its interests in another country is wrong. Just look at Americans today, many do not like the idea of the Japanese buying out U.S. companies and making profits off of us, but terrorism is not justified for any reason. There is no way that the RAF could have survived on a long-lerm basis, they only had the support of 10% of the West German population. If you are interested in revolutions and how revolutions are won, then read about what took place in Cuba. People keep bragging about Che Guevera, but Fidel Castro was the true revolutionary, and so was Celia Sanchez.

This is a short chronic of the German terrorist group Red Army Fraction - not very detailed but quite accurate. One weak spot however - the author seems to have some understanding for this band of mad murderers, which is itself hard to understand - at least for me.