Bruce Allen Scharlau PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

There are possibly two
135
different types of families that the
terrorists in the seventies came from. One is where the parents worked
their way up to high social status through diligence, hard work and
self-restraint. They had little time to offer their children any
practical insights and guidance. In an attempt to compensate for this
lack of attention, the parents gave the children material gifts, the
same things the parents were working hard to provide for themselves. The
parents wanted to instill in their children similar values of hard work,
obedience to authority and
gratification. 111
the control of impulses and deterred
A second type of family would be one with well-educated parents that
provided their children wi th liberal ideas of freedom,
equality and
possibly socialism. This was done in a permissive atmosphere without
enough self-restraint taught. These children had a hard landing in the
real world after leaving home because they lacked enough orientation to
manage successfully. 112
This leads to the argument that children of
leftist parents did not learn to accept their emotional-erotic impulses
and fantasies as part of themselves, but rather viewed these as from
outside of themselves. 113
This is simplified, but does represent the group that emerged from
the ~TImediate
post-war hardship, and the later group that emerged from
the 'economic miracle I. These two types are also continuously found in
any state, and would thus supply more youths that might prove
susceptible to terrorist ideas.
The suspected terrorists of the eighties did not appear to move
around different areas, and all but one changed schools at least once
before moving on to further study and/or training. Unfortunately there
is little information offered about the family life: Birgit Hogefeld is
one of three children, and Thomas Simon is the son of a tool and die
maker with one brother. 114
An important time and phase in the process of socialisation for
individuals is that of adolescence, when a person questions the
lifestyles available, the commitments that could be made, and who they
might become. The trying and testing of possible identities is not so
much the search for a permanent identity, but an accelerated phase of
111 Herbert A. Kampf, "On the Appeals of Extremism to the Youths of
Affluent Democratic Societies" Terrorism 4 (1980) 161-93, 168.
112 ibid., 169.
113 Grossarth-MaticekJ 20.
114 Horchem (1988), 155-9; Lukas Lessing, "Schwarzwald Faktion"
Wiener 11 November 1986, 58-74; Hans Oberlaender, "Die Taeter" Stern
Extra: Terrorisrrrus- -Das Attentat: Mord an Alfred Herrhausen 4 December
1989, 51-3, 52.