Monika Berberich

Monika Berberich is a convicted West German terrorist and a founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She was involved in the violent freeing of Andreas Baader in 1970, and served a prison sentence between 1970 and 1988 in connection with it.

Unlike some other former RAF members, she has never attempted to distance herself from the terrorist organisation's goals and methods.

Life Monika Berberich was born and grew up in Oberursel, a small town on the northern fringes of Frankfurt. Her upbringing was powerfully catholic. She studied jurisprudence at Frankfurt and the Free University of Berlin, emerging with a law degree. Her first serious brush with the law came in 1965 when she spent four months in a Prague prison for the crime of helping political refugees attempting to escape from Czechoslovakia.

At some stage she passed her level I national law exams, but she never progressed to level II. (Linke would survive the injury. (a meeting point pre-arranged with the comrade who had collected the girls from the Bremen apartment where they had been sent before the operation to free Baader reached it denouement In September the group returned to West Germany and began stockpiling weapons.

On 8 October 1970 Berberich went to visit some friends at Knesebeckstraße 89 in West Berlin. The police were arresting her comrades when she arrived. She later recalled that the police did not have her "on their list. They were really surprised when I came in". They nevertheless arrested Berberich, together with Horst Mahler, Irene Goergens, Ingrid Schubert and Brigitte Asdonk. With the exception of Asdonk, the police determined that all those arrested were carrying loaded weapons. and taking part in the freeing of Andreas Baader. She received (initially) a twelve-year prison sentence. This, reportedly, was two years longer than her female co-defendants because of her intelligence and legal training which persuaded the court that she was particularly dangerous. Berberich's three fellow-escapees were members of the 2 June Movement. To an outsider, the RAF and the 2 June Movement were broadly similar both in their ideals and in their methods, but at this stage they were still separate and on occasion saw one another as rival organisations. Nevertheless, it is clear that during her time in prison Berberich had already formed an excellent mutually supportive friendship with Rollnik. (Berberich's three fellow-escapees remained at large for another two years. )

Following her brief escape Berberich's sentence was extended. In the end she remained in prison till March 1988. Except during the two years 1976-1978, she shared the experience with Rollnik, in many ways a political soul-mate, who also became a friend. Berberich engaged in nine hunger strikes: Rollnik in six. In the end, Rollnik began to hallucinate and "hear voices". After her release she suffered continuing problems with vision and balance which she attributed to the hunger strikes. in Frankfurt.