Holger meins biography

Holger Meins

German revolutionary, RAF member

Holger Klaus Meins (26 October 1941 – 9 November 1974) was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.

As a revolutionary

Meins became an important member of the RAF and was seen as a leading figure. He was very involved in the group's clandestine work, for instance hiring a metal sculptor to design a grenade casing and bomb mould designed which could be placed under a woman's dress, giving the impression that she was pregnant, telling the sculptor that it was a prop for a film project.[1]

On 1 June 1972, Meins and Andreas Baader, along with Jan-Carl Raspe, went to check on a storage garage in Frankfurt where they were storing explosives. The police had been surveilling the garage after a tip from a local resident. Meins and Baader entered the garage and were immediately surrounded. The police blocked the exit of the garage and fired tear gas grenades into the garage via a back window. Baader threw the tear gas back out. The st

The Baader-Meinhof Gang Holger Meins

posted on: October 10th, 2011 by Richard Huffman

tags Hans-Joachim Klein, Holger Meins

Holger Meins (born in August of 1971) joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang early in 1971. A leftist Berlin film student, he was tired of being hassled by the police for his political views and wanted to take some direct action. He was to become one of the primary members of the group. Meins was arrested on 1 June 1972 along with Jan-Carl Raspe and Andreas Baader in a bloody Frankfurt shootout.

In prison the gang would call periodic hunger strikes. There was evidence that some of the leaders, such as Baader, faked their hunger strikes. But Meins clearly did not fake his. He died on 11 November 1974 from a hungerstrike. Over six feet tall, Meins weighed less than 100 pounds at death. A autopsy photo of a skeletal Meins was kept by Revolutionary Cells terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein. “I hold on to this photo to keep my hatred sharp,” said Klein.

STARBUCK - HOLGER MEINS

EN Starbuck, that is the helmsman of the Pequod in Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Starbuck, that was the code name of the German terrorist Holger Meins.

Holger Meins was the first Red Army Faction member to die in custody in prison on hunger strike in 1974.
He was 33 years old.

25 years after his death, Gerd Conradt, filmmaker and friend, sets off searching for the trail of the helmsman of the Baader-Meinhof Group.
Who was Holger Meins?

What made him go underground? Which circumstances caused his death, a death transforming him into the declared symbol of radical resistance?
What remains of him?

A whole range of companions give information about this path through this tragic chapter of German history with the help from the widest variety of documents of the times.

Meins the boy scout, artist, film maker and guerrilla is remembered by Gretchen Dutschke, Harun Farocki, Wolfgang Petersen, Peter Lilienthal, Michael Ballhaus, Margrit Schiller, “the family screw” Detective Superintendent Alfred Klaus, and others.

Director’s Statement

Holger Meins and

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