Katharina Hammerschmidt (14 December 1943 – 29 July 1975) was a German student of pedagogics and sympathizer of the

first generation First generation, Generation I, or variants of this, may refer to: History * 1G, the first generation of wireless telephone technology * First generation of video game consoles, 1972–1983 * First generation computer, a vacuum-tube computer M ...

Red Army Faction The Red Army Faction (, ; RAF ),See the section "Name" also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang ( ), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a terrorist organisat ...

(RAF). She died in 1975 due to

throat cancer Head and neck cancer is a general term encompassing multiple cancers that can develop in the head and neck region. These include cancers of the mouth, tongue, gums and lips ( oral cancer), voice box ( laryngeal), throat ( nasopharyngeal, orophar ...

, which was treated far too late in a West German state prison. When the RAF disbanded in 1998, they remembered Hammerschmidt as one of its victims.

Early life and education

Katharina Hammerschmidt was born in

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

in 1943. She studied pedagogics.

Career

In 1970 she got in touch with the RAF through her friend

Gudrun Ensslin Gudrun Ensslin (; 15 August 1940 – 18 October 1977) was a German far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction (, or RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang). After becoming involved with co-fou ...

. Hammerschmidt was suspected of having transported weapons packages as a courier and of having rented apartments for the group. Police filed a warrant against her and Hammerschmidt flew from West Germany to France. Upon the advice by her lawyer

Otto Schily Otto Georg Schily (born 20 July 1932) is a former Federal Minister of the Interior of Germany, his tenure was from 1998 to 2005, in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and wa ...

, she returned to West Germany and turned herself in to the police on 29 June 1970. Schily had expected that Hammerschmidt would be questioned but then released, but she was taken into custody. When she began her detention, she complained of health problems. After a physical examination, she was prescribed sedatives and laxatives.

Illness and death

Her health continued to deteriorate, but the prison doctors could not diagnose anything. At the end of November 1973, Hammerschmidt suffered an attack of suffocation. Schily filed a complaint against the prison doctors for attempted murder. The notice, signed by 131 doctors, stated that “this issing the tumorcannot be explained by insufficient medical knowledge.” In December 1973 she was allowed to see an independent internist. The doctor diagnosed a “tumor the size of a child’s head” in the chest area. She died a year and a half later in the

West Berlin West Berlin ( or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin from 1948 until 1990, during the Cold War. Although West Berlin lacked any sovereignty and was under military occupation until German reunification in 1 ...

FU Clinic Steglitz.

Legacy

The last official action of the RAF, the Weiterstadt prison bombing, was executed by the RAF's ''Katharina Hammerschmidt Command''. In their communiqué the RAF wrote "We greet all who fight for dignity in prisons ....". In the bombing, the RAF attacked the new prison under construction with 200 kg of explosives. The command captured the prison guards, took them to safety, and put up warning signs for the population.

References

{{Authority control Members of the Red Army Faction 20th-century German women 1943 births 1975 deaths