Former RAF Member Silke Maier-Witt Reflects on Her Past in New Memoir

Silke Maier-Witt discusses her radicalization, time in the Red Army Faction, and path to reconciliation in a candid new biography.

Silke Maier-Witt, a former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), shares her personal journey in a new memoir, 'I thought, by then I’d be dead.'
She reflects on her involvement in the 1977 kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer and her eventual disillusionment with the RAF's violent methods.
Maier-Witt explores her childhood trauma, lack of emotional support, and search for belonging as factors in her radicalization.
After leaving the RAF in 1979, she lived under a false identity in East Germany until her arrest in 1990, later serving time in prison and rebuilding her life as a peace worker in the Balkans.
She expresses remorse for her actions, seeks to dismantle the mythologization of the RAF, and highlights the personal toll of violence on those who perpetrate it.