Revolutionary Cells

Rote Zora began in 1977 as the autonomous feminist arm of the Revolutionary Cells,^[4] a major radical left terrorist organisation in West Germany, which saw itself as a rival to the more prominent Red Army Faction. The organization took its name from the protagonist of the 1941 book Die Rote Zora und ihre Bande (English title: The Outsiders of Uskoken Castle) by Kurt Held, which tells the story of a red-haired girl named Rote Zora (rot meaning red in German) who leads a gang of orphans committed to righting injustice.

The organization had previously existed from 1974 as "Women of the Revolutionary Cells" and began its attacks in 1975, with a bombing of the building of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, and in 1977 with a bombing outside the offices of the German Medical Association, both of which were to protest against support for anti-abortion laws.^[3][5] In 1978, Rote Zora committed arson attacks against sex shops in Cologne. In 1980, they set fire to the car of a lawyer in Bergisch Gladbach, near Cologne, to protest gentrification. In 1981, they distributed fake local public transport tickets in the Ruhr area together with the Revolutionary Cells. In 1983, Rote Zora committed four bomb attacks against a recruitment agency for foreigners, a bomb attack on the Philippine embassy in Bonn, bomb attacks against Siemens in Braunschweig and Witten, Attacks on the Nixdorf Computer in Hanover, and the data center of the Association of Clubs Creditreform in Neuss. In 1984, they committed an arson attack on two companies in Gütersloh who were accused of using prison labor for private profit. In 1985, attacks were committed on the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, a medical institute of the University of Heidelberg, and the Institute of Genetics of the University of Cologne.

Split

In 1986, Rote Zora split from the Revolutionary Cells, having become disillusioned with the violent methods of other left-wing groups that had resulted in deaths. Although there was still significant overlap in membership, Rote Zora launched a separate campaign that was intended not to harm.^[6] Their first attack as an independent organization was an arson attack against the Institute of Human Genetics at the University of Münster, where sensitive documents were also stolen from the institute and published. The same year they committed a bombing attack on the Society for Biotechnological Research in Braunschweig. In 1987, Rote Zora committed ten arson attacks against the clothing chain Alder, including their headquarters in Haibach, and at branches in Halstenbek, Bremen, Oldenburg, Isernhagen, Kassel, Holzwickede, Neuss, Frankfurt and Aachen. In 1988, they committed a bombing attack at the Biological Institute of the Technical University of Berlin. In 1994, they committed an arson attack on a company supplying food to refugee shelters in Nuremberg and Gera.

Rote Zora carried out its last known attack in July 1995, when it bombed the shipyard of Lürssen GmbH in the Vegesack district of Bremen, in support of the Kurds in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Lürssen was manufacturing a ship for Turkey, and was accused by the group of being armaments suppliers for the Turkish regime, which leads a war against the Kurds.^[7]

Citations

Sources

• "Rote Zora: An Introduction". Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader (PDF) (3 ed.). Oakland: AK Press. 2012. pp. 111–114. ISBN 978-1-84935-103-4.
• Rucht, Dieter (2003). "Violence and New Social Movements". In Heitmeyer, Wilhelm; Hagan, John (eds.). International Handbook of Violence Research. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 369–382. doi:10.1007/978-0-306-48039-3. ISBN 978-1-4020-3980-5.