Erik v. Kuehnelt-Leddihn

The abduction last winter of Peter Lorenz, top candidate of West Berlin’s Christian Democratic Union, and the killings at the West German Embassy in Stockholm in April once again highlighted the aggressive and destructive nature of Germany’s New Left. The trial of the leaders of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof gang (responsible for the kidnapping and the terror in Stockholm) has just started and the former husband of Ulrike Meinhof—-one of the defendants—has already anticipated some of the unfolding testimony with a volume of exceedingly interesting reminiscences. His name is Klaus Rainer Röhl and his book is Fünf Finger sind keine Hand —Five Fingers Make no Fist.

Röhl used to belong to the Communist Party, and although he broke with it and with the very unimaginative East German apparatchiki who tried to prescribe the course he should take, he still sticks to his own brand of Marxism. The most important of his revelations is that konkret (with a small “k”), the New Left’s leading periodical which he founded, was initially financed by Communist East Berlin. Right after World War II, in the years 1945-1947, British and American occupation authorities issued all licenses to publish and in their enthusiasm for full democracy in Germany they insisted that “all parties” be represented on the editorial boards— which meant that Communists were installed everywhere in the German press. Journalists of Christian or conservative coloring were suspect as “reactionaries.” Because the editorial staffs of German newspapers are self-perpetuating bodies, it’s not surprising that a poll last year showed that about 80 per cent of West German editors supported the Social Democratic government in Bonn and only 20 per cent the Christian Democratic CDU or CSU—a situation which fortunately does not accurately reflect German public opinion.

Featured Tags

The abduction last winter of Peter Lorenz, top candidate of West Berlin’s Christian Democratic Union, and the killings at the West German Embassy in Stockholm in April once again highlighted the aggressive and destructive nature of Germany’s New Left. The trial of the leaders of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof gang (responsible for the kidnapping and the terror in Stockholm) has just started and the former husband of Ulrike Meinhof—-one of the defendants—has already anticipated some of the unfolding testimony with a volume of exceedingly interesting reminiscences. His name is Klaus Rainer Röhl and his book is Fünf Finger sind keine Hand —Five Fingers Make no Fist.

Röhl used to belong to the Communist Party, and although he broke with it and with the very unimaginative East German apparatchiki who tried to prescribe the course he should take, he still sticks to his own brand of Marxism. The most important of his revelations is that konkret (with a small “k”), the New Left’s leading periodical which he founded, was initially financed by Communist East Berlin. Right after World War II, in the years 1945-1947, British and American occupation authorities issued all licenses to publish and in their enthusiasm for full democracy in Germany they insisted that “all parties” be represented on the editorial boards— which meant that Communists were installed everywhere in the German press. Journalists of Christian or conservative coloring were suspect as “reactionaries.” Because the editorial staffs of German newspapers are self-perpetuating bodies, it’s not surprising that a poll last year showed that about 80 per cent of West German editors supported the Social Democratic government in Bonn and only 20 per cent the Christian Democratic CDU or CSU—a situation which fortunately does not accurately reflect German public opinion.