NEWS CENTER – Exactly 40 years ago, the internationalist and revolutionary Elisabeth Käsemann was murdered in Argentina. She was captured by the fascist military junta in Argentina, kidnapped and severely tortured in a torture camp (cynically a former vacation center) until she was shot on May 24 by the heavies of the fascist regime.
Elisabeth Käsemann was born in Gelsenkirchen on May 11, 1947, the fourth and youngest child of a prominent university professor. She went to school in Göttingen and Tübingen and distinguished herself early on by her political interest and commitment. After graduating from high school, she began studying sociology and political science at Freie Universität in Berlin, where she joined the Socialist German Student League (SDS) and belonged to Rudi Dutschke’s circle of friends, who went down in history as the Marxist leader of the student movement in 1968.
In political discussions with theology professor Helmut Gollwitzer, she became acquainted with militant groups in Latin America that pursued the goal of democratic and socialist revolution. In addition to the war in Vietnam, the revolutionary movements in Latin America captured Elisabeth Käsemann’s attention. After a lengthy discussion of the theories of Fidel Castro, Régis Debray, K. S. Karol and Gisela Mandel, she learned at the Protestant Church Congress in Hanover in June 1967 of the possibility of completing the compulsory internship in Latin America provided for in her studies. After completing her intermediate diploma, she traveled to Bolivia and worked for half a year as an intern in a social service station in La Paz, starting in September 1968.
After a year-long tour of Latin America, she decided to stay. She could no longer imagine returning to Germany after experiencing poverty and injustice in Latin America and decided to make a contribution to improving living conditions. In July 1969, she wrote to her parents:
“I am in the process of identifying myself with the destiny of this continent. Perhaps this will lead to decisions that you will not understand or that may cause you much grief.”
Since 1970 she lived in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, first obtaining the Argentine university entrance qualification, earning her living as a multilingual secretary and translator, and from April 1975 studying economics. She participated as a volunteer in leftist social projects and became involved in communist organizations. These included revolutionary groups engaged in armed struggle, such as the Trotskyist Organización Comunista Poder Obrero (OCPO, “Workers’ Power”), which was second only to the Revolutionary Workers’ Party (PRT) with its armed arm Revolutionary People’s Army (ERP) among the Marxist groups seeking violent overthrow in the 1970s.
In the early 1970s, Käsemann befriended Frenchman Raymond Molinier (1904-1994), a former private secretary to Leon Trotsky and a leading figure in the Fourth International. Against a backdrop of escalating violence between revolutionaries and right-wing pro-government death squads, Molinier helped numerous activists escape Argentina with forged passports. Elisabeth also actively participated in this network to support persecuted comrades. According to witnesses, she also became involved in the militant underground organization PRT-ERP.
After the military overthrew the government in March 1976 and established a military dictatorship, opposition figures, revolutionaries and left-wing activists were persecuted, tortured and murdered en masse. At this time, Elisabeth lived underground and used the alias “Cristina,” because people in her circle of acquaintances were constantly disappearing without a trace. During a conspiratorial meeting of the PRT-ERP, an assassination attempt was prepared on a military man who had made a name for himself as a torturer. Elisabeth Käsemann was supposed to carry out this action, but she refused because she could not imagine killing anyone. Käsemann, however, was determined to stay in Argentina and continue the fight, since she considered it a betrayal to leave her comrades in this dangerous situation. Although Elisabeth herself had practically no experience in the use of weapons, she is said not to have been a pacifist, but as a revolutionary she was ready to use violence, but within the limits set by her moral conscience.
On the night of May 8-9, 1977, Käsemann was arrested in Buenos Aires on charges of “terrorism” and taken to the secret detention and torture camp El Vesubio, where she was subjected to severe torture. On the night of May 24, 1977, she and 15 other prisoners were transported from the secret prison to a house in Monte Grande, the main town of Esteban Echeverría in the south of Greater Buenos Aires, where she was murdered by gunshots to the neck and back.
Elisabeth Käsemann is one of the best-known German victims of the Argentine military dictatorship, which is said to have murdered around 30,000 people between 1976 and 1983. An opponent of the fascist dictatorship who actively campaigned for social revolution, she was taken to a secret prison, interrogated under severe torture for two and a half months, and finally murdered. The German ambassador, who was friendly with Argentine rulers, demonstrably did nothing to obtain her release, as did the government in Bonn. An international campaign for her release was unsuccessful, for which the lack of action by German authorities was also blamed. In 2011, several people involved in the crime and those responsible were sentenced to prison in Argentina.
In a documentary of the television station ARD about the fate of Elisabeth and the lack of initiative of German authorities and institution it becomes clear that as soon as the term “terrorist” falls, any sympathy stops. Fritz Grüde who has watched the documentary apart, wrote the following comment on 07 June 2014:
“In fact, according to the film, any attempt to participate fades away once the terror verdict has been passed. Understand itself, without anyone to justify the verdict. And therein lies the weakness of all states. The human rights obligation of every community, as we consider it to be founded, presupposes generally and incontestably that torture may not be used anywhere in the world. And this quite independently of the alleged or real guilt of the person or persons concerned. There is an obligation, without exception, to first get the person concerned out of undignified captivity. Even if one brings up then in the homeland an orderly procedure against the rausgeholtten. Where in the whole world is this simple tenet of human duty fulfilled without reserve?”
The documentary can be viewed at the following link: The Girl – What happened to Elisabeth K.? 05.06.2014 | 75:00 min | UT |
It is clear that the practice of that time is repeated today, we can see how, for example, in Turkey by the fascist AKP-MHP regime in the prisons overcrowded with leftist, socialist and Kurdish activists are tortured to death, while the world public opinion does not comment on it. How under the guise of “defense against terrorism” even chemical weapons operations against the guerrillas of the Freedom of Kurdistan are normalized and skillfully looked away.
