RAF Document

The following is a statement issued from Stammheim Prison by jailed RAF lawyer Klaus Croissant, dated Nov. 20, 1977. Thanks to LNS.

“At Stammheim I have been subjected to the same conditions of isolation against which I have struggled for years as defense attorney for the RAF prisoners. I am systematically and completely deprived of all contact with other prisoners...Food is passed to me by a prison employee through a hole in the door of the cell...

“It is through the same large hole that I am permanently observed. This continual surveillance gives rise to an atmosphere of psychiatrization: the prisoner is cast in the role of a sick person with ‘suicidal’ compulsions...Such detention conditions are against the first article of the constitution and also against international conventions of the protection of human rights.

“The suicidal intentions ascribed to me are totally lacking in foundation, and that explains the following events: When I awoke on Sunday, November 20, I discovered a razor blade in the wardrobe in the cell—the brand was “Blaupunkt”—hanging from a nail. I showed my discovery...to the person who surveilles me. He verified the discovery, took the razor blade and made a written report. He remarked that it was a blade in current use by the prison administration.

“If I had really entertained thoughts of suicide, it would have been very easy to hide my discovery and then use the razor to put an end to my days. Considering the detail of the measures designed to prevent the so-called possibility of suicide, it is necessary to ask whether this razor blade was not left there as a provocation.”

Two days later, Croissant discovered three more razor blades in his cell, according to the Parisian daily Liberation. This information was confirmed on Wednesday, November 23 by the Minister of Justice of Wurtenburg. In another letter given to his lawyer, Croissant wrote that the presence of these blades was meant to “push him into suicide.” He reaffirmed that any “rumors of his eventual suicide were without basis.”

RAF Document

The following is a communique that was sent to the Black Flag newspaper shortly after the recent attempted kidnapping and execution of Jurgen Ponto, chairman of the giant Dredner Bank.

“In the present situation in which both the Federal Attorney’s Office and the State Security Services have begun their massacre of prisoners, there is no real justification for long declarations.

“When the shots hit Ponto in Oberursel, it became very clear to us that these people, who start wars in 3rd World Countries and wipe out entire races, are dumbfounded when violence faces them in their own homes.

“The smear put out by the State Security Services of “big money” is as untrue as everything else that was said about the attack.

“Naturally, the thing to do always is pit the new against the old, and here it means: the struggle—for there is no prison—against the universe of money in which everything is prison?”