by Cora Buhlert

West Berlin's Most Wanted

 
Do you remember the idiots who broke leftwing activist and convicted arsonist Andreas Baader out of prison in May and subsequently fled to the Middle East? Well, they're back in West Berlin and back to causing more chaos.

Rumours that the fugitives – since dubbed the Baader-Meinhof Gang by the press after the alleged leaders of the group Andreas Baader and former journalist Ulrike Meinhof – had  returned and were living in hiding have been flying around the leftwing scene in West Berlin since August, though the police were unable to apprehend any of them.

Then, on September 29, at around 9:45 in the morning, masked thugs stormed into three different banks in three different parts of West Berlin at roughly the same time, brandishing weapons and demanding money. The faces of the robbers were hidden behind knitted balaclavas, but witnesses report that the gangsters included both men and women. At least one robber had cut a hole into his balaclava, allowing him to smoke. Once they had gathered up the money, the robbers fled in various cars. These cars were later found abandoned around the city.

The three robberies only lasted a few minutes each, but they were extremely lucrative. At a branch of the Berliner Bank AG in the wealthy Friedenau neighbourhood, the robbers stole more than 154,000 Deutschmarks. At the same time, in a branch of the Berliner Sparkasse in the wealthy Steglitz neighbourhood, another team of robbers stole more than 55,000 Deutschmarks. And in another branch of the Berliner Sparkasse in the Hansaviertel neighbourhood near the city centre, yet another team of robbers stole a little over 8000 Deutschmarks from various cash drawers, thankfully overlooking a box with 97000 Deutschmarks under the counter.

Bank robberies are sadly not uncommon, but three bank robberies happening in the space of ten minutes was unheard of until last week, so the West Berlin police quickly realised that the same group had to be responsible for all three crimes. And since a leftwing pamphlet with the title "Dispossess the Enemies of the People" was found at one of the crime scenes, suspicion fell onto the so-called Baader-Meinhof Gang. But while the police swiftly set up checkpoints all over West Berlin, none of the robbers have yet been caught.

In their last communication in the form of a letter to the leftwing 'zine agit 883 in June, the so-called Baader-Meinhof Gang announced that they were going to build up the Red Army to liberate the working class. How robbing banks will liberate the working class is a mystery known only to Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler and friends But then, life on the run is expensive and now the gang have gained 217,000 Deutschmarks to cover the costs of their lives underground.

However, there is one bit of good news as well. For Ulrike Meinhof's eight-year-old twin daughter Bettina and Regine, who vanished from Meinhof's apartment in West Berlin shortly before the prison break, have been found alive and well in Sicily, where they were staying with friends of their mother. Journalist Stefan Aust, a former friend of Meinhof's, picked the girls up, once he learned about their whereabouts, land returned them to their father, so there is at least one happy ending to this story.

A Game of What If…?

 

Regular readers may be aware that I'm a big fan of the pulp fiction of yesteryear. And thankfully, a lot of it is coming back into print right now, so it's possible to enjoy the adventures of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Conan the Cimmerian, Kull of Atlantis, Solomon Kane, Jirel of Joiry, The Shadow, Doc Savage, Fu Manchu and others in brand new paperback editions without having to hunt down yellowing pulp magazines.

Reading all of the wonderful adventures of these iconic characters inspired me to try my hand at some pulp inspired fiction of my own, whether it's a series of 1930s set adventures inspired by The Shadow and The Spider or sword and sorcery stories inspired by Conan, Kull and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

What is more, I sometimes also wonder what if all of those pulp heroes actually lived in the same world? What if Conan were to team up with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Jirel of Joiry were to join forces with Ivanhoe? What if John Carter bumped into Eric John Stark on Mars and then they both teamed up to fight Ming the Merciless? What if Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson hunted French master thief Arsene Lupin or the criminal mastermind Fantomas or took on Fu Manchu? What if the Spider or the Shadow fought Dr. Mabuse? Or maybe James Bond could join forces with Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin to fight Blofeld? Or how about Doc Savage and his friends battling Cthulhu?

Do these possibilities intrigue you? Then I have just the book or rather three for you.

Continue reading [October 8, 1970] It's All Connected – A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin by Philip José Farmer →