The Philosopher and the Terrorist: When Sartre met Andreas Baader

[RZM]

Jean-Paul Sartre's meeting with RAF leader Andreas Baader was long considered to be one of the philosopher's great missteps. A transcript of the meeting, which has only now been released, shows the Nobel laureate actually wanted to persuade him to stop murdering people.

A large entourage of journalists gathered at the Stuttgart airport, awaiting the arrival of the short-statured intellectual. French star philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's visit to Andreas Baader -- the top terrorist of Germany's Red Army Faction (RAF), the radical left-wing group also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang -- was a worldwide sensation. It was Dec. 4, 1974.

A Peugeot brought the 69-year-old Sartre to a high-security prison in the Stuttgart suburb of Stammheim. The thinker was initially reticent, but at a press conference after the meeting with Baader, he leveled heavy accusations against the West German government, then under the chancellorship of Helmut Schmidt.

The RAF prisoners were being held in solitary confinement in sound-proofed cells with constant artificial lighting. It was not "torture like that of the Nazis," but "another torture, a torture that leads to psychological disturbance," he said.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/transcript-released-of-sartre-visit-to-raf-leader-andreas-baader-a-881395.html

[JackRiddler]

1. Reminds me of more recent cases...

The RAF prisoners were being held in solitary confinement in sound-proofed cells with constant artificial lighting. It was not "torture like that of the Nazis," but "another torture, a torture that leads to psychological disturbance," he said.

No?