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RAF members Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin at the department store fire trial in Frankfurt (1968)
Photo:
AP
A letter of congratulations from the Federal President is actually a joyful affair.
However, the message from Frank-Walter Steinmeier to actress and director Margarethe von Trotta on the occasion of her 80th birthday caused trouble.
Steinmeier praised the fact that von Trotta, with her “own handwriting, enabled new perspectives, especially on great women in world history”, “who face up to the ruptures and impositions of their respective times”.
According to the letter, these included “Rosa Luxemburg, Hildegard von Bingen or Hannah Arendt” – and the RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin.
Von Trotta had made films about these women.
Ensslin belonged to the first generation of the "Red Army Faction", a left-wing terrorist group.
The RAF terrorized the Federal Republic, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1998 she declared herself dissolved.
A total of 34 murders go to her account.
Ensslin was also convicted of murder and died in prison.
The former "Bild" editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt published an excerpt of the letter on the Twitter news service and sharply condemned the formulation.
The spokeswoman for the Federal President Anna Engelke then spoke up: »This is clearly a mistake.
A convicted murderess doesn't belong in that line.
We apologize and will correct the letter of congratulations.« The letter was then deleted from the website of the Office of the Federal President.
Steinmeier was only recently elected to Bellevue Palace for a second term.
"I thank those who gave me their vote for the trust they had in me," said Steinmeier after his re-election, "and I ask for the trust of those who did not give me their vote."
He made a promise and a warning to the assembled MPs: “Anyone who fights for democracy has me on their side.
Whoever attacks them will have me as an opponent.«
muk