I noticed this cover for a magazine at the German grocery yesterday....their central story....asking if they are still in a protest direction, or heading toward being RAF-like terrorists in the future.
In the case of the real Red Army Faction (RAF, 1970s).....they were simply protest activists....up until the arrival of the Shah of Iran in Berlin, and the college student was killed in the after-protest action. Years after this (around 30 years later), the German government would discover that the student's death was actually caused by a West-Berlin policeman....who just happened to be a DDR-undercover agent (Stassi, more or less). From that day on....the group was modeling themselves more as a terror group, than a protest group.
In this current matter? I would project that when the 'kids' go and disable a oil refinery, or cause a complete shutdown of a major German airport for 12 hours, or start 6-hour shutdowns of gas stations around the country.....a serious amount of legal action by the government will occur, with dozens (if not hundreds) of the activists put in jail for a minimum of a month. This will trigger them toward more violent episodes, and you end up in a terror campaign.
The difference today from the 1970s? I would say three significant factors favor the government: more security cameras everywhere, serious negativity by the public over weapons use or bomb use, and continual monitoring of messaging systems is simplified (compared to the 1970s).
The discussion going on? A lot of Germans remember the era, and how things got way out of control.
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