1 - The Violent Woman, Motherhood, and the Nation

Summary

IN AUGUST 1977, DER SPIEGEL reproduced a striking photograph of a woman with a bomb, masquerading as a pregnant woman, in a cover story titled “Terroristinnen: Frauen und Gewalt” (Female terrorists: Women and violence) (fig. 3). The accompanying caption in the magazine informed the reader that the photograph was taken during a police training demonstration. Although the device was constructed by Dierk Hoff, an accomplice of the RAF, there is no evidence that it was ever used by West German woman terrorists. There is also no mention of the contraption in the main body of the twelve-page Spiegel feature. This begs the question why Der Spiegel would print such a provocative image. In one sense it warns the reader to be vigilant at a time of heightened terrorist activity. The feature was prompted by the RAF shooting of the chief executive of the Dresdner Bank, Jürgen Ponto, on 30 July 1977, an operation in which several women terrorists, including Ponto's close family friend Susanne Albrecht, played a central role. As Vojin Saša Vukadinović points out, though, the feature has “practically nothing” to say about Ponto himself, whose death supposedly inspired it. What it does have a great deal to say about is the phenomenon of women and political violence. According to the feature, the majority of West German terrorists wanted by police in 1977 were women.