Bruce Allen Scharlau PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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between imperialistic authori ties in the consciousness
of the people. 22
Their first target, the US Fifth Army Corp Headquarters on 11 May
1972, was to answer American bombs with Red Army Faction bombs in order
to eliminate secure areas for the US.23
In 1973 the Revolutionary Cells underscored their displeasure with
US-imperialism and supported the Third World by bombing ITT
(International Telephone and Telegraph) offices in West-Berlin (17
November 1973) and Nurnberg (18 November 1973) as their first official
activity. These attacks were also linked with the company's involvement
in the overthrow of Allende's goverment in Chile.24
In 1976 they added US military targets because:
We understand our struggle as that of a colonised
people, whose territory of the Federal German
administration is given up to the US-imperialism as the
main support area, and is made ready as the military
and strategic headquarters for the subjugation and
eradication of the European people, the people of the
Middle East and during the Indochina war the people of
the Far East.25
The eighties saw the RAF shift from attacks on unprotected American
rear areas in 1972 to the RZ view of attacks on enemy strongholds. The
RAF no longer attacked weak points, because of the imperialist's
problems elsewhere, but attacked it in its homeland. By showing Gennany
to be a centre of imperialist power it also pointed to Germany's role of
servant with the real masters- -the USA. (via NATO)- -being in charge. 26
The s~ne
targets were attacked for different reasons.
The May 1982 paper clarified the RAF's position by calling for an
anti-imperialist front "within the framework of the world-wide struggle"
whereby the major enemy/target is 'US-imperialism'.27 These targets had
been underscored in 1981 by an attack on the NATO Air Force Headquarters
in Ramsteim on 31 August, and by the attempted assassination of the US
Army Supreme Commander in Europe, General Frederick J. Kroesen, on 14
September.
The RAF stated these attacks were a sign of the
22 Red Army Faction, "Dem Volk dienen: Stadtguerilla und
Klassenkampf" (1983), 374.
23 B.H. Miller (1983), 212.
24 Revolutionary Cells (1985), 25.
25 ibid., 43.
26 B.H. Miller (1983), 332, 341.
27 Red Army Faction, "Guerilla, Widerstand und Antiimperialistische
Front" (1983), 613.