Arwed Messmer:: RAF. No Evidence / Kein Beweis

With a 48-page insert Over the past 40 years, much has been said about the RAF and the German Autumn of 1977 from journalistic, historical, literary,

cinematic and artistic perspectives. Arwed Messmer's starting point is the various photographs taken by police photographers: photos of demonstrations, crime scenes and identification records. He asks how this former criminal investigation can also be productive as an artistic endeavour today. His narrative spans the arc from the beginnings of the movement to the multiple outbreaks of violence in 1977, the kidnapping and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, and the suicides of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in Stammheim Prison. Messmer's work thus also has an ethical dimension: which photographs can be shown, how can they be shown, why should we see them? It touches on a central point in the debate about images that are, on the one hand, historical documents and, on the other, have their own aesthetics and a great, almost uncontrollable potential for empathic engagement with history.