‘On the other hand, while Thorsten Wiedler was also a successful industrialist, he was not in the same league as Schleyer. He came from a Social Democrat, working-class background, had been too young to see military service during the war and had no particular political leanings or significance. The reason he was targeted by The Risen was, apparently, that his factories were major polluters. Of course there was a lot of rhetoric about so-called “solidarity” with the RAF during the German Autumn, and Wiedler also represented, in a more modest way, West German capitalism. But his abduction was seen as counter-productive to the “revolution” and served to isolate The Risen even further. I think that was why there was never any full statement issued by the group about Wiedler’s fate. It became an embarrassment to them. The body was never found and the Wiedler family were denied the right to bury and mourn him. But added to all of this was the very “hippie” twist that Red Franz and The Risen gave to their politics. There was a lot of what we would consider New Age claptrap involved.’
‘What kind of claptrap?’ asked Fabel.
‘Well, The Risen is one of the more difficult groups to research, because they were relatively isolated, but one of their group, Benni Hildesheim, became disaffected and defected to the RAF. When Hildesheim was arrested in the nineteen eighties he claimed The Risen had been too wacky for him. He said that they took their name from the belief that Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, would protect itself by generating a band of warriors, of true believers, to defend her when she was in danger. These warriors would rise again and again, across time, whenever needed. Hence, The Risen. Red Franz Muhlhaus used to claim, apparently, that they were drawn together as a group because they had all lived and fought together before, at other times in history when the Earth needed them for protection. It was not something that fitted with the uncompromisingly rational and inflexible Marxist ideology of Baader-Meinhof.’
‘And where do Muller-Voigt and Hans-Joachim Hauser fit in with Red Franz Muhlhaus?’ asked Fabel.
‘Hauser? I don’t know. Hauser was a self-promoter and a hanger-on to others. I don’t know of any direct link to The Risen or Muhlhaus other than that he was a vocal supporter of Red Franz’s earlier “interventions” – disrupting Hamburg Senate sessions, sit-ins at corporate or industrial premises, that kind of thing. But after things started to heat up and banks began to be robbed, bombs planted and people killed, Hauser, like so many others on the trendy Left, suddenly became less vocal in his support. That doesn’t mean to say that he did not become directly involved. In fact, his comparative silence could be easily be taken as him keeping a low profile. As for Muller-Voigt, he and Red Franz got together in the late nineteen seventies. After Muhlhaus was put on the wanted list for the murder of the boss of a Hanover pharmaceutical company, and then, of course, for the Thorsten Wiedler affair, I suspect that Muller-Voigt was operating as a “legal” for The Risen.’
‘But you think his involvement went deeper?’
‘I’ll tell you something very personal, Herr Fabel. My father made a tape. He asked for a cassette recorder while he was still in hospital. He had been a very energetic and fit man and faced with a future in a wheelchair he became deeply depressed. But he became angry, too. He was determined to do anything he could to help find Herr Wiedler and catch his abductors. A long time after my father died, when I was at an age when I was deciding what I should study at university, I listened to the tape. My father described the events of that day in great detail. It was as if he wanted the truth to be known. It was after I listened to that tape that I decided to become a journalist. To tell the truth.’
‘And what did he say?’
Ingrid Fischmann looked undecided for a moment. Then she said, ‘I tell you what, I’ll send you a copy of it. And I’ll dig out some photographs and general information and mail them to you. But, in short, my father said he estimated that there were six terrorists involved. He only got a good look at the face of one of them in particular. The others were wearing ski masks. He was able to give a very detailed description to the police and they produced an artist’s impression of the terrorist. Not that it did any good. As you know, no one was caught for the Wiedler kidnap. Except if you count Red Franz Muhlhaus’s demise as justice.’
‘And how do you know for sure that Bertholdt Muller-Voigt was involved?’ asked Fabel.
‘You remember Benni Hildesheim, whom I mentioned earlier? The defector from The Risen to the Baader-Meinhof group? Well, I interviewed him after his release from prison and he claimed that there were a number of individuals who are influential today who had been either directly involved in the actions of The Risen or who had supplied logistical and strategic support. Safe houses, weapons and explosives, that kind of thing. Hildesheim told me that there were six people involved in the Wiedler kidnapping, which fits with my father’s account. He claimed to know the identity of all six, as well as the identities of everyone in the support network.’
‘He didn’t tell you?’
Ingrid Fischmann gave a small laugh laden with cynicism. ‘Hildesheim displayed a remarkably capitalist streak for a former Marxist terrorist. He wanted money for the information. Of course, he did not know that I was the daughter of one of the group’s victims, but I did tell him he could go to hell. I wanted the truth about who shot my father. But not at any price. Hildesheim seemed convinced that some tabloid would meet his price. He insisted that some of the names would shake the Establishment to its foundations, that kind of crap. You have to remember that this was about the time when Bettina Rohl, Ulrike Meinhof’s daughter, sent a sixty-page letter to the State Prosecutor demanding that Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer be charged and brought to trial for the attempted murder of a policeman in the nineteen eighties. It is not inconceivable that there are others in the government and other high office who have the odd skeleton in the cupboard.’
‘But Hildesheim didn’t get his deal?’ asked Fabel.
‘No. He died before any deal was concluded.’
‘How did he die? Was there anything suspicious about it?’
‘No. No grand conspiracy. Merely a middle-aged man who smoked too much and exercised too little. Heart attack. But he did give me something on account. He told me that he knew for an absolute fact who the driver was that day – and that they had gone on to become a prominent public figure. But getting a firm statement and proof to back it up was part of the deal he struck. Unfortunately he didn’t live to share it with me.’
‘Hildesheim never mentioned Hauser?’
Fischmann shook her head.
‘Nor Gunter Griebel?’
‘’Fraid not… I don’t think I’ve even come across the name in my research.’
They talked for another fifteen minutes. Ingrid Fischmann outlined the history of the militant movement in Germany and its transition from protest to direct action to terrorism. They discussed the aims of the various groups, the support they got from the former communist East Germany, the networks of supporters and sympathisers who made it possible for so many terrorists to evade capture for so long. They also discussed the fact that out there, unknown to others, perhaps even unknown to their closest friends and families, there were people hiding a violent past behind a normal life. Eventually, they had said all there was to be said and Fabel stood up.