Gabriele Rollnik

Mientras aún trabajaba en Telefunken , Rollnik recibió una visita inesperada de una amiga que llegó acompañada de un hombre. ^{[ 8 ]} Su amiga le preguntó si le permitiría a Till Meyer usar su apartamento. Meyer se había fugado recientemente de prisión, apenas unas semanas antes de su liberación programada al final de una condena de tres años; temía nuevos cargos penales porque sabía que las autoridades habían encontrado un nuevo testigo de la fiscalía. En 1971/72, Meyer había sido miembro fundador del Movimiento 2 de Junio, un movimiento anarquista de izquierda . Tener a Meyer en su casa puso a Rollnik en contacto directo con lo que rápidamente se estaba convirtiendo en una seria organización terrorista. Mientras tanto, comenzó a cuidar de Meyer, organizándole documentos de identidad. Los dos se convirtieron en amantes. Rollnik descubrió que quería "conocer a los demás" e "integrarse de verdad" ( "Ich [wollte] die anderen kennenlernen. Ich wollte richtig mitmachen." ). ^{[ 8 ]} Gabriele Rollnik se unió al Movimiento 2 de Junio ​​poco después, también en 1974. ^{[ 10 ]} Décadas más tarde, cuando todo terminó, periodistas serios realizaron entrevistas reflexivas para intentar comprender cómo y por qué Rollnik se había involucrado en el terrorismo. Parecía haber ganado confianza en sí misma gracias al sentimiento de pertenencia a algo que consideraba valioso. Para entonces, la prioridad más apremiante del movimiento, tras una ola de arrestos en 1973/74, era liberar de la cárcel a los camaradas "mayores y con más experiencia". ^{[ 6 ]} Aprendió a falsificar documentos, a forzar cerraduras, a disparar: aprendió las habilidades necesarias para poder operar al margen de la ley y para poder "llevar a cabo acciones". Pero también era "divertido" ( es machte ihr aber auch „Spaß“" ). ^{[ 8 ]}

Rollnik participated in the planning and implementation of the Peter Lorenz kidnapping.^[1][5] Lorenz was a candidate in the West Berlin mayoral elections who was kidnapped three days before the first round of the election on 27 February 1975.^[11] Her practical involvement included renting a retail premises at Schenkendorfstraße 7 where she opened a "second-hand shop", the basement of which became the "People's Prison"^[9] in which Lorenz was held while unsuspecting customers sought out the bargains overhead,^[11] and comrades conducted successful negotiations with the authorities for the release of five imprisoned group members.^[8] Lorenz was released unharmed on 2 March 1975, a few hours before the second round of the election in which he had been unable to participate.^[11]) A few months later, on 13 September 1975, Gabriele Rollnik was arrested in Berlin.^[9] Most of the terrorist suspects arrested were taken to Stammheim Prison on the northside of Stuttgart, but Rollnik was one of four detained in the Lehrter Straße women's prison in West Berlin where conditions were less onerous.^[5]

On 7 July 1976 the four women managed to escape through a window in the prison library^[8] from the women's prison in West Berlin.^[9] Those involved, along with Rollnik, were Monika Berberich, Juliane Plambeck and Inge Viett. Berberich, a qualified lawyer, was a member of the Red Army Faction, while the other three all came from the 2 June Movement.^[8] To an outsider, the two groups were broadly similar both in their ideals and in their methods, but at this stage they were still separate and on occasion saw one another as rival organisations.^[5] In a trial that took place only four years later it was stated that by the time the four had made it across the roofs to their get-away car, they had overpowered their guards: implements used in the escape had included the tube from a roll of toilet tissues, three bed springs tied together and a fire arm or fire arm replica.^[9]

Después de esa fuga, Rollnik vivió sin registrarse "bajo el radar", principalmente en Alemania. ^{[ 5 ]} Tras el exitoso secuestro de Lorenz, el grupo necesitaba fondos para reconstruir su organización y diseñar nuevas estrategias. Se pusieron en marcha planes para otro secuestro, esta vez con el objetivo de pedir un rescate por la víctima. Para reducir el riesgo de verse atrapados en el creciente número de búsquedas policiales en Alemania Occidental , el secuestro se llevaría a cabo en Viena , donde el famoso y acaudalado magnate textil Walter Michael Palmers fue secuestrado el 9 de noviembre de 1977. Sus captores lo retuvieron durante unas 100 horas, tras las cuales, a cambio de un pago de 30,5 millones de chelines , fue liberado. Dos de los terroristas huyeron del país y fueron detenidos en el cruce fronterizo suizo-italiano de Chiasso . Cinco meses después, el apartamento del cuarto piso que los secuestradores habían alquilado en Viena-Leopoldstadt fue descubierto por las autoridades el 20 de abril de 1978, cuando el conserje ( Hauswart ) reconoció a Juliane Plambeck por un "cartel de búsqueda". Aunque el alquiler se había pagado por adelantado hasta febrero de 1978, el apartamento había parecido deshabitado desde noviembre de 1977. ^{[ 12 ]} Los detalles de su participación en el secuestro de Viena siguen siendo vagos, pero Rollnick evidentemente era "de interés continuo" para las autoridades de Alemania Occidental. La propia Rollnick parece no haber dado nunca mucha información a las autoridades sobre el secuestro de los Palmer. Sin embargo, después de que finalmente fue encontrada y arrestada, se celebró un juicio en 1980/81, durante el cual los fiscales aportaron pruebas de largos interrogatorios policiales e investigaciones judiciales que involucraron a cómplices locales, reclutados y empleados en Viena por los secuestradores de Alemania Occidental. A partir de esta evidencia, se hizo evidente que un trío de mujeres, Inge Viett, Gabriele Rollnik y Juliane Plambeck, habían participado de manera destacada en la ejecución de la conspiración de secuestro. ^{[ 9 ]} Sin embargo, en 1977, ella permaneció "en libertad", operando clandestinamente con otros miembros del grupo. ^{[ 5 ]}

The success of the Vienna kidnapping having lifted their financial challenges, the group nevertheless found themselves under intensifying pressure from the security authorities, shaken by the succession of terrorist atrocities that dominated the news agenda for much of 1977. There was discussion of finding new objectives. One response to the pressures would have been for the 2 June Movement to move closer to the Red Army Faction, or even for the two groups to implement a strategic merger. In the discussions within the 2 June Movement, Rollnik, who had got to know Monika Berberich in the context of their 1976 jail escape, was a backer of such a move, but despite major organisational "restructuring" during 1977/78 to take account of the group's changing circumstances, a merger with the RAF did not occur at this point. Nevertheless, Rollnick later insisted that informally the various West German terror groups at large during the 1970s were far less isolated from one another than expert commentators in the mainstream media had implied.^[6]

Extracting comrades from prisons remained a top priority, and on 27 May 1978 Rollnik was involved in another jail break, this time from the outside. The escaping prisoner was her old lodger-lover, Till Meyer, who was liberated from the Berlin-Moabit prison^[5] in an operation that "involved at least one P38 pistol, fitted with a silencer, and a Polish-made PM-63 machine-pistol".^[9] Till Meyer received a visit from "his lawyers" - actually a group member called Angelika Goder - with an assistant, using false identity documents and apparently with the weapons concealed on their persons. Minutes later the lawyers left with their client. A prison officer was shot in the leg during the course of Meyer's escape.^[9] The "lawyers" had arrived with a driver: Gabriele Rollnik drove the getaway car, identified by the license plate "B-AN 8482" - a Berlin registration.^[9] Pressure on the police to find Meyer and the terrorist comrades who had helped him escape was overwhelming: Meyer, Rollnick and two others discussed further moves, and decided to travel to Palestine where they "had contacts" and wanted to "get military training".^[5] There being no direct flights from East Berlin to Palestine, they traveled via Bulgaria. A couple of weeks later, in a "cloak and dagger operation", Till Meyer, Gabriele Rollnik, Gudrun Stürmer and Angelika Goder were arrested at a cafe in the port city of Burgas following a tip-off.^[10] The terrorist suspects tried to apply for political asylum, but the Bulgarian officials refused to talk to them.^[5] Instead they were handed over to West German officials. The next day, expelled by the Bulgarians, they were flown back to West Germany with Lufthansa, the national airline.^[6] As they boarded their flight in Bulgaria Günther Scheicher, the officer in charge of the West German officials responsible for their transport arrangements, called out cheerfully "Heim ins Reich!" ("Home to the Reich"), using colloquial language that recalled Germany's twelve years under Hitler. "Probably a former Nazi", Rollnick speculated when she recalled the repatriation more than three decades later.^[5]

Facing trial in Berlin just 26 days after Meyer's daring escape, the four defendants were immediately charged with membership of a terrorist organisation, which on a conviction could lead to a prison term of up to ten years.^[9] Further charges, relating to the various high profile 2 June Movement terrorist outrages of the previous few years were then added. Other terrorist suspects had been captured nearly two years earlier and were already on trial on another floor of the court building in respect of some of the same offences, which led to procedural complications. It was estimated early in 1980 that the "largest and most wide-ranging terrorist trial to date" would last two or three years. The court room building had been prepared with a range of physical barriers and devices to prevent the accused from staging any more dramatic escapes, and fifty police officers were deployed in permanent readiness for any unplanned disturbances while the trial was under way.^[9] Lawyers for the accused saw their endless procedural objections summarily dismissed, while it became clear that those on trial had not volunteered much information to the prosecutors. Attempts to show that Rollnik had personally been present in the escape attempt that had cost the Berlin court president Günter von Drenkmann his life ran into difficulties, but where there were gaps in the evidence the prosecutors applied notions of joint culpability: regardless of whether or not she had personally killed anyone, forensic (and circumstantial) evidence was cumulatively presented whereby Rollnik was depicted as one of the movement's more strategic leaders, and actively involved in the atrocities described.^[9] In 1981 Gabriele Rollnik was sentenced to a fifteen year jail term.^[10]

During her time in prison Rollnick took part in six hunger strikes. The objective was to secure improved treatment and conditions, and from experience the inmates found that up to a point it worked.^[13] In the end, she began to hallucinate and "hear voices". After her release she suffered continuing problems with vision and balance which she attributed to the hunger strikes.^[8] One concession apparently resulting from a hunger strike involved prisoners being permitted to talk by telephone to convicted terrorists in other prisons. While Rollnick was in prison she first spoke to Karl-Heinz Dellwo, a Red Army Faction member. (While they were in jail the RAF and 2 June Movement finally agreed to merge.) She was released in 1992 and the two remained in contact, although Dellwo remained in jail for another three years. They came face to face in 1995 on a river boat on the Elbe that had been rented for seven hours to host a "release party" of approximately 200 left-wingers who had been extremist activists during the 1970s and were now coming to the end of their prison sentences. Rollnick and Dellwo subsequently teamed up and have been together since that time.^[5]

One of the concerns that had fuelled the terrorist wave that hit West Germany in the 1970s was a conviction that far too many former Nazis had quietly returned to positions of power and influence in the political and security establishments, and other fulcra of state power. By the time the surviving terrorists had served their lengthy sentences, the passage of time had removed most of these. Reunification meant that after 1990 there was no longer an alternative German model for those who favoured Soviet-sponsored "Socialism" over US-sponsored "Capitalism". For this, and other reasons, there seems never to have been any question of a return to lawlessness following release. Instead, building on the university studies that she had not competed, Rollnick turned to care and social work. Her first regular job involved employment as a care worker in a retirement home. After a year, helped by a friend, she found a job in a children's home in Hamburg's traditionally run-down St. Pauli district. During five years working here, she resumed her studies, gaining a qualification in psychotherapy for children and young people, and later (finally) graduating with a degree in social sciences.^[5]