The Red Aid and its political orientation in the context of the Berlin elections

In many places the impression is currently being given that the electorate in Berlin has demanded socialism. It was a quarter of her. The opponents of this project, which is primarily pursued in the housing industry, it goes on to say, therefore denounced its sponsors as people dubiously involved with clan structures, anti-Semites and left-wing radicals. It is intended to distract, the utopia is intended to be talked down to. Basically, the left only intends to do what should be discussable among supporters of the rule of law. Whether this includes the overthrow of the “capitalist system” with the help of migrants remains to be seen. Freedom of contract, freedom of occupation and property are protected by the Basic Law.

Breakfast television, last week: Journalist colleague Ronen Steinke is asked about Red Aid. He reports on legal issues for the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and is considered a level-headed representative of the rule of law. The Rote Hilfe came into discussion because the candidate for the office of governing mayor in Berlin had long been a passive member of this organization. In total it is said to have more than 21,000 members in Germany.

See F.A.Z. articles more often in your search results

F.A.Z. prefer on Google

Steinke finds nothing to complain about. Because the Red Aid is not directed “against the system”, it is the system by financing legal support for people who saw themselves motivated by left-wing motives to commit actions that appear to be illegal to the public prosecutor’s office. We put it so complicatedly because Rote Hilfe puts it more simply: According to its website, it supports all leftists who are being persecuted by the state because of their political commitment. Here the politically persecuted, there the persecuting state. It is obvious that he means the Federal Republic.

What separates legal assistance from involvement in crime?

Steinke found that the Red Help's commitment was normal and that every suspect or defendant deserved legal assistance. The latter is undoubtedly the case. A day later, Willi Winkler assisted him in the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. He is reminiscent of the lawyer Hans Litten, who appeared in trials against National Socialists and other enemies of democracy in the Weimar Republic and died in the Dachau concentration camp, a lawyer for the Red Aid. Winkler lists impressive examples of the Weimar Republic's jurisprudence being particularly friendly towards right-wing radicals and particularly hostile towards left-wing extremists. He describes judgments like those of Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, for whose Office for the Protection of the Constitution the Red Aid is left-wing extremist, as blind to history.

However, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which the Left wants to abolish while maintaining its findings on the AfD, is not an institute for contemporary history. If he were one, he could have added the re-foundation of the Red Aid in 1975 to Winkler's chronicle. At that time it was not about resistance against National Socialists, but about legal and logistical support for terrorist groups such as the Red Army Faction (RAF), the June 2nd Movement and the Revolutionary Cells. It was about financing lawyers, but also courier services. In the founding phase of the Red Aid, Hans-Joachim Klein particularly stood out, who shortly afterwards went into the armed underground and was later convicted of murder. The chronicler Winkler knows about the thin line that separated legal assistance and involvement in crimes at the time. He just doesn't talk about it.

Tempi passati? Rote Hilfe was not founded as a legal protection group for leftists. Today it does not support them in the event of a conflict with the law in the same way that one could support migrants or the poor in court. Rather, she insists that people she helps are not allowed to cooperate with the police or public prosecutor. Anyone who confesses to their crime or even shows remorse in court loses their support, as do people who give information to the investigating authorities. So it gives conditioned help and does not support leftists who are under criminal investigation, but rather resistance fighters. For them, legal proceedings against leftists are “show trials”. Judgments made against leftists are often seen as violating human rights for this very reason. On March 18th she celebrates “Political Prisoners Day” and parades in front of German prisons.

This is consistent, because Rote Hilfe sees the state as an instance of repression. She does not see herself in a fight for justice, but in a political fight. Typical cases in which she supports the defense include trespassing and trespassing, damage to property and the use of violence against political opponents. The Rote Hilfe organized protests against the imprisonment of the RAF terrorist Daniela Klette. She supported demonstrators who were charged with serious breaches of the peace during protests such as those against the G-20 summit in Hamburg in 2017. It also applied to them that they were not allowed to confess under any circumstances. Sometimes Rote Hilfe pays fines imposed on those convicted in such proceedings.

Is the state a conspiracy against its citizens?

None of this is wrong. But if Berlin is soon to be ruled by a long-time supporter of the Red Aid, it can't hurt to know what this organization's views are. She rejects ideas such as the idea that citizens have a stake in the state through legitimate elections, political participation and the chances of getting justice in court. She maintains the suspicion that the state, together with capitalism, is a conspiracy against its citizens and especially against those on the left among them.

That's why she particularly liked members of the RAF. Like the Left Party, it sees the existence of the police as a sign of oppression. Its supporters believe it is a sensible social reform idea to largely replace the police with social welfare. Whether this would be a good idea is not discussed, but rather assumed. If such projects fail because of career criminals who don't think about allowing persuasion to stop them from committing their crimes, that doesn't bother them. They don't want to know that the Remmos of this world would laugh at a social-educational treatment of their existence. They are even less likely to accept this insight if they can supposedly recognize good, namely left-wing, motives for crimes.

We don't know how Ronen Steinke or Willi Winkler would find "brown" or "blue" help for right-wing extremist criminal suspects and whether the first thing that would come to their mind is that collecting money for people who attack asylum homes is a completely normal process in the constitutional state. Red Aid certainly sees itself as more legitimate than legal insurance for baseball thugs who also don't have it with “the system”. The rejection of the horseshoe image, according to which the extremes touch, ensures different tolerances when the iron is struck from the left or from the right. The “Hammer Gang” is one of Rote Hilfe’s clients. The Red Aid considers the fact that the Albanian Rexhino Abazaj, who is suspected of serious bodily harm and membership in a criminal organization, to be extradited from France to Germany as an expression of a “repressive offensive” and political persecution.

At this point let's come back to the candidate for the office of Governing Mayor of Berlin. Elif Eralp left Rote Hilfe 2025 “because of partly different political views,” as was cloudily announced. In fact, it could amount to a paradox if the political executive were led by a person who can imagine that there is political persecution and political prisoners in Germany. Berlin gave Eralp a kind of government mandate in the elections, Berlin deserves to be noticed. This is democracy. Let the city live with her. With the anti-Semitism of a loud minority in her party. With their people's involvement in the clan economy. With their ambitions to supply the fight of the “working class” for the overthrow of the capitalist system with voters through the unlimited influx of migrants to Berlin. With the phantasms of their housing policy. The city only has to look at all of this for four years. Nobody can just say that you didn't know it beforehand.