Little known outside of Germany, the name Stammheim conjures up images of the radical left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction among Germans. A high-security prison near the southern German city Stuttgart, Stammheim is where leading RAF members were imprisoned and later found dead under mysterious circumstances in the 1970s. Parts of the facility will soon be torn down.
Andreas Magdanz spent five months living near the prison. He said he wanted to capture the charged atmosphere around the facility from up close. He took hundreds of photos, about 30 of which make up an exhibition by photographer Andreas Magdanz running at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart until March 2013.
RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in October 1977 in the high-security block on the prison's seventh floor. Whether murder or suicide caused their deaths was a question that split Germany. The official version - that they committed suicide - was confirmed by doctors, but that has not put a stop to discussions about the left-wing militants' deaths.
Even before the other four died, RAF leader Ulrike Meinhof was found dead in cell 719 on May 9, 1976. Despite the tight security measures in place, she hanged from strips of a torn towel that was tied to a bar on her cell's window. Conditions for the RAF prisoners were criticized by many at the time and divided public opinion in Germany.
RAF members called conditions at Stammheim "torture by isolation." Many sympathizers agreed with this view, which would later come to be regarded as false. Despite being kept alone in their cells, the prisoners had access to televisions, record players and chances to meet other prisoners every day. The architecture in Stammheim, however, was designed to make clear the state held all the cards.
RAF prisoners, including Andreas Baader, repeatedly used hunger strikes to protest the prison's conditions. In a show of support, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre visited Baader. Like Sartre, there were many intellectuals who rejected the RAF's use of terrorism but still saw the group as part of a general leftist movement and deserving of their critical comradeship.
The imprisoned RAF members demanded recognition as "prisoners of war." From their point of view, they had waged a war against the state since the early 1970s. In the tense atmosphere created by the murders and kidnappings committed by the RAF, the government responded to the terrorist campaign by beefing up security laws and investigating civil servants' political persuasions.
The four leading RAF members imprisoned in Stammheim, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, were found guilty on four charges of murder and 54 charges of attempted murder. A special windowless "multi-purpose building," which cost about 12 million deutschemarks (about 6 million euro or $7.8 million) was built at the Stammheim facility for their trial.
It's the prison itself, not the former inmates, that's at the center of Magdanz's exhibit. German designers were excellent at creating "functional rooms devoid of emotion," the photographer said. "There is hardly any way to make architecture colder."
There are currently about 600 inmates at the Stammheim prison. Even after part of the facility is torn down, it will remain a symbol of German history.All pictures are details of Andreas Magdanz's original photographs.
A high-security prison near the southern German city Stuttgart, Stammheim is where leading RAF members were imprisoned and later found dead under mysterious circumstances. Parts of the facility will soon be torn down.
A high-security prison near the southern German city Stuttgart, Stammheim is where leading RAF members were imprisoned and later found dead under mysterious circumstances. Parts of the facility will soon be torn down.
