A Crisis of Legitimacy? Human Rights, Diplomacy, and the Red Army Faction, 1970-80

When the West German authorities responded to the threat posed by the Red Army Faction during the 1970s, they also faced criticism from increasingly internationalized civil society initiatives in defence of human rights. West German activist intellectuals sought to publicize inhumane prison conditions like solitary confinement, as well as wider-reaching measures like the 1972 Anti-Radical Decree which excluded those deemed to hold 'anti-constitutional views' from the civil service. Although dismissed by their domestic political opponents as pro-terrorist posturing, the rising currency of human rights in this decade made criticism of prison conditions a more potent issue on an international scale. Criticism of West German conditions in terms of 'human rights' was, however, a double-edged sword. It afforded domestic issues considerable international resonance. But it also sparked an official response that focused more on repairing West Germany's international image through counterpublicity campaigns than on investigating the veracity - or otherwise - of the Left's criticism of domestic conditions. Government officials saw the language of human rights as too important to hand over to left-wing opponents. To them, it was an opportunity for the Federal Republic to signal its rehabilitation as a liberal democracy and criticism of domestic conditions threatened to undermine this project.