Ingrid Schubert : Letters From Prison 1970-1977

Ingrid Schubert (1944-1977) was one of the first members of the RAF, and among the first to be imprisoned. This volume contains original letters from prison to her sister, showing her efforts to maintain her integrity, political identity, and at the same time a meaningful exchange with her family. Schubert participated with Ulrike Meinhof and Irene Goergens in the freeing of Andreas Baader from prison in May 1970. In the summer of 1970, she travelled with roughly twenty other RAF members to Jordan to undergo military training with the Palestinian militant group Fatah. On 29 September 1970, Schubert drove the getaway car during an RAF robbery of a savings bank in West Berlin. In the summer and autumn of 1970 Schubert took part in at least 2 further bank robberies. On 8 October 1970, she was arrested at an apartment in West Berlin along with RAF members Horst Mahler, Brigitte Asdonk and Irene Goergens. Schubert was tried along with Horst Mahler and Goergens; the trial began on 1 March 1971, and in April Schubert was sentenced to 13 years in prison. In 1975, she was one of the prisoners whose freedom was demanded during the West German Embassy siege in Stockholm. Between 1976 and 1977 she was imprisoned in JVA Stuttgart along with Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Jan-Carl Raspe, Irmgard Möller and Brigitte Mohnhaupt, where she took part in several hunger strikes. During the German Autumn of late 1977, the RAF kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer and demanded that Schubert and other RAF members were released from prison. After the Mogadishu hijacking, the West German state announced on 18 October 1977 that Baader and Ensslin had committed suicide and that Raspe and Möller were injured. Raspe later died and Möller survived to state that there had not been a suicide pact and the deaths were murders. Schubert was moved to Stadelheim Prison in Munich and was found dead in her cell on 11 November 1977. The authorities said it was death by hanging. The autopsy did not find evidence of suicide. Schubert had recently told her lawyer that she had no plans to kill herself.