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LUFTHANSA

Last flight home for icon of ‘German Autumn’ of terror

Forty years ago next month, German anti-terror commandos stormed a Lufthansa jet in Somalia, shot its Palestinian hijackers and freed 90 hostages, a climax in a bloody era of far-left militancy.

Last flight home for icon of 'German Autumn' of terror
"Landshut" is finally coming home. Photo: AFP

The 1977 Mogadishu raid became a symbol of the “German Autumn” when the state was at war with the “urban guerrillas” of the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, and their international allies.

This Saturday, the storied old Boeing 737 “Landshut”, having quietly rusted away in Brazil for almost a decade, will finally come home, destined to serve as a memorial to that turbulent era.

“It's a living symbol of a free society that refuses to give in to fear and terror,” said Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, whose ministry bought the gutted plane for the bargain price of €20,000 ($24,000).

Broken up into its fuselage and wings, it was scheduled to arrive aboard two giant Russian transport planes from Fortaleza via Cape Verde to the southern German city of Friedrichshafen.

In the years since that dramatic night when gunshots blasted through its cabin, the aircraft kept flying – first for Lufthansa, then for French, Indonesian and finally a Brazilian airline, which in 2008 retired it on the jungle's edge.

Now the plane, weathered by tropical sun and rain, will find a new home in Germany's Dornier aerospace museum near Lake Constance, set to become an exhibition space on Germany's era of homegrown terrorism.

Bombings, kidnappings

The RAF emerged in 1970 out of the radical fringe of the Vietnam war protest movement and took up arms, in solidarity with revolutionaries such as Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Ho Chi Minh, against what it saw as US capitalist imperialism and a German state then still riddled with former Nazis.

After training with leftist Palestinian militants, it launched a spate of shootings, bombings and kidnappings targeting politicians, police, bankers, business leaders and US troops.

By 1977, its hard-core members, including founding leader Andreas Baader, were long since behind bars, and their comrades sought to free them from their cells.

On October 13th, four militants of the RAF-allied Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Mallorca-Frankfurt flight LH 181, demanding the release of 11 RAF members.

During a five-day odyssey which included seven refuelling stops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the cell's leader, who called himself Captain Martyr Mahmud, shot dead the pilot, Juergen Schumann.

Then-chancellor Helmut Schmidt refused to give in even though RAF militants were also holding hostage the industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former SS officer.

 'Where are the pigs?'

The Lufthansa jet landed in Mogadishu on October 17th, where Mahmud issued an ultimatum, threatening to set off plastic explosives and dousing passengers in alcohol to accelerate the fire.

After nightfall, 30 German commandos landed, the plane's lights turned off. Operation “Feuerzauber” (“magic fire”) was the first mission of the new GSG 9 unit, founded after the security debacle of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Jewish athletes.

While German officials played for time, the commandos approached the plane's rear blind spot from behind sand dunes, then climbed blackened ladders to its doors and escape hatches.

Mahmud was on the cockpit radio when he was blinded by flash-bang grenades outside.

The commandos stormed in, one yelling “Heads down, where are the pigs!?”, and riddled all four hijackers with bullets, killing three and badly wounding a fourth.

The 82 passengers, four surviving crew and the commandos were unharmed, and officials phoned the message “the job's done” to Bonn.

Hours later in Germany, prison guards reported finding the bodies of three RAF leaders. Their deaths were declared suicides.

In a revenge act, RAF militants shot dead Schleyer, after five weeks in captivity.

By then the RAF terror had claimed over 30 victims, but more waves of killings followed.

The RAF only disbanded in 1998, and, although it had ironically helped to vastly expand German police powers, many murders were never solved.

Today, most ex-militants are dead or living quietly as ex-convicts. Three remain on the run, suspected of robbing money transport vans with grenade launchers to finance their retirement.

By Frank Zeller

DEMONSTRATION

Tens of thousands march against far-right in France

Tens of thousands of people across France on Saturday marched against "attacks on freedoms" and what organisers said was a growing influence of far-right ideas ahead of next year's presidential elections.

Tens of thousands march against far-right in France
A "Freedom march" called by several organisations, associations and trade unions to "combat extreme right-wing ideas" on June 12. credit: SAMEER AL-DOUMY / AFP

Members of more than 100 left-leaning organisations participated in the “Liberty March” in cities and towns across the country.

The protests were the first opportunity for a divided left to take to the streets after a year and a half of Covid-19 restrictions.

Organisers reported 70,000 participants in Paris and 150,000 around the nation, while the Paris police and interior ministry put the numbers at 9,000 in the capital and 37,000 nationwide.

The interior ministry said 119 rallies had taken place.

In Nantes, western France, around 900 people rallied, according to the local prefecture, including scores of far-left militants who clashed with police.

In the Mediterranean port of Marseilles, more than a thousand demonstrators marched behind a CGT union banner that called for “unity to break down the capitalism that leads to fascism”.

Protesters vented against issues ranging from recent legislation they say chips away at liberties, such as a law that could see prosecutions for publishing images of police officers in action, to what they charge is a creep of far-right ideas into the mainstream ahead of next year’s elections.

In the southern city of Toulouse, a 54-year-old teacher and union activist who gave his name as Gauthier remarked that students had begun to challenge him and warned that “extreme right ideas are gaining ground”.

Far-right ideas “are no longer the monopoly of far-right parties and … have now largely penetrated the political class,” said Benoit Hamon, the Socialist presidential candidate in 2017.

In Paris, far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon had flour thrown in his face as he spoke to reporters.

A suspect arrested later in the day claimed to be a “sovereigntist” who social network specialists said broadcast far-right commentary on YouTube.

The move against Melenchon, who has been accused of fuelling conspiracy theories ahead of the presidential election, came days after President Emmanuel Macron was slapped in the face while shaking hands with people on a regional visit.

Other events that have caused concern in France recently are allegations of ties between far-left figures including Melenchon and Islamists, a YouTube video that simulated the execution of a militant from his France Unbowed party, and university gatherings at which Caucasian participants were allegedly not allowed to speak.

Jordan Bardella, vice president of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, dismissed the demonstrations on Saturday as a bid to deflect attention from Melenchon’s remarks on terrorism and the 2022 presidential election.

Groups that took part included Socialists, Communists, ecologists and trade unions.

READ MORE: Calls for nationwide day of demonstrations in France against ‘far-right ideology’

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