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August 29, 2025
The thirty-eighth #book I finished in 2025: I've never been a fan of the urban guerrilla strategy, — the idea that left-wing activists could topple the capitalist state through underground armed struggle. But Till Meyer's autobiography is a spectacular page turner, full of daring prison escapes, shocking betrayals, and audacious heists.
Meyer was a key figure of the June 2 Movement, which pulled off the most successful armed acton in West Germany history: the 1975 kidnapping of West Berlin mayoral candidate Peter Lorenz, which secured the release of five political prisoners.
The book opens with this story — wisely., as that's what everyone came for — before jumping back to a childhood of poverty with a single mother in West Berlin. Meyer couldn't adapt at all to the authoritarian school system. A three-week prison sentence for truancy was supposed to scare him straight, but instead imbued him with hatred for the capitalist state.
After moving to Trier, Karl Marx's home town, he radicalized as part of the 1968 youth movement. He then returned to West Berlin and gravitated toward armed struggle. A young man who barely managed to get a high school diploma was astoundingly good at the diverse skills, combining bravery and meticulousness, required to build an clandestine apparatus.
Meyer was arrested multiple times, but managed to escape from two different jails. It was only after his final arrest, during a long prison sentence, that he decided to draw a balance sheet of his years as a guerrillero. He concluded that his actions had not been successful according to his original political goals. So while some of his comrades joined the Red Army Faction, Meyer returned to legal life and worked as a muckraking journalist .
Ironically, despite leading an "anti-authoritarian" guerrilla group (in contrast to the pro-Stalinist RAF), Meyer ended up as a sympathizer of East Germany. He crossed the border regularly to report to Stasi officers, and was horrified as their system collapsed. He demanded: Why don't you just shoot all those counterrevolutionary priests?!?
He opens his memoirs by noting that history is written by the winners, and he has been on the losing side. For me, his story is the ultimate critique of the urban guerrilla strategy — few have practiced it more effectively than Meyer, and even he came to see it as futile.
Meyer was a key figure of the June 2 Movement, which pulled off the most successful armed acton in West Germany history: the 1975 kidnapping of West Berlin mayoral candidate Peter Lorenz, which secured the release of five political prisoners.
The book opens with this story — wisely., as that's what everyone came for — before jumping back to a childhood of poverty with a single mother in West Berlin. Meyer couldn't adapt at all to the authoritarian school system. A three-week prison sentence for truancy was supposed to scare him straight, but instead imbued him with hatred for the capitalist state.
After moving to Trier, Karl Marx's home town, he radicalized as part of the 1968 youth movement. He then returned to West Berlin and gravitated toward armed struggle. A young man who barely managed to get a high school diploma was astoundingly good at the diverse skills, combining bravery and meticulousness, required to build an clandestine apparatus.
Meyer was arrested multiple times, but managed to escape from two different jails. It was only after his final arrest, during a long prison sentence, that he decided to draw a balance sheet of his years as a guerrillero. He concluded that his actions had not been successful according to his original political goals. So while some of his comrades joined the Red Army Faction, Meyer returned to legal life and worked as a muckraking journalist .
Ironically, despite leading an "anti-authoritarian" guerrilla group (in contrast to the pro-Stalinist RAF), Meyer ended up as a sympathizer of East Germany. He crossed the border regularly to report to Stasi officers, and was horrified as their system collapsed. He demanded: Why don't you just shoot all those counterrevolutionary priests?!?
He opens his memoirs by noting that history is written by the winners, and he has been on the losing side. For me, his story is the ultimate critique of the urban guerrilla strategy — few have practiced it more effectively than Meyer, and even he came to see it as futile.
Displaying 1 of 1 review