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Fashion Victims
German terrorist plotted to kidnap designer Karl Lagerfeld
If there's anything more bizarre than the wacky world of high fashion, it's the loony land of hard left extremism. The two came together, or nearly did, back in 1977 when members of Germany's Baader-Meinhof terrorist movement schemed to kidnap rich public figures, among them Chanel fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.
The Guardian reports that former Red Army Faction terrorist Peter-Jürgen Boock has revealed that the organisation drew up a hitlist of rich figures of which Lagerfeld was the most prominent figure.
At the time, the German-born designer was working for Paris fashion house Chloe.
Boock, who has been released after serving 17 years for terror offences, said that Lagerfeld was a perfect target. Not only was he rich, but as a fashion designer he represented a world of extravagant wealth that the Red Army Faction fiercely opposed. Lagerfeld also came from a rich family.
The terror group was dedicated and ruthless and it seems Lagerfeld had a lucky escape. Only months before, its members murdered state prosecutor Siegfried Buback. The Lagerfeld plan was dropped and terrorists targeted Hanns-Martin Schleyer - a spokesman for one of Germany's employers' federations - instead.
Schleyer's kidnappers later murdered him.
The Baader-Meinhof group, named after its two most infamous leaders, murdered an estimated 34 people, among them Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen and Siemens board member Karl Heinz Beckurts. While it demanded ransoms in exchange for those it kidnapped, it was more usual for the terror group's members to kill its victims soon after they were snatched.
The group causes great controversy still in Germany. It is believed to have been active until 1991 and those members still living are becoming eligible for parole, pardons, or, in some cases, finishing their sentences. Courts ruled in February that murderer Brigitte Mohnhaupt be released after serving 24 years.
Because of the Red Army Faction's committment to "collective responsibility" for its murders, it has been difficult to determine which of the groups individuals pulled the trigger in each murder. Boock's interview with newspaper Der Spiegel appears to have broken this omerta but some commentators have dismissed his claims.
However, German politicians have demanded that judges look again into the question of who murdered federal prosecutor Buback.
Ironically, the Baader-Meinhof gang has fascinated fashion designers and style writers in recent years, in a phenomenon Germans describe as "terrorist chic."
