Klaus Croissant

Klaus Croissant in 1977

Klaus Croissant (24 May 1931 – 28 March 2002) was a lawyer of the Red Army Faction, later an East German spy and a political activist for Berlin's Alternative Liste and after 1990 the PDS.

Croissant was shown by Kurt Rebmann, then Attorney General of Germany “to have organized his cabinet the operational reserve of West German terrorism”. A campaign against his imprisonment, in which in particular Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault took part, was organized in his favour. He was released under bail and fled to France on 10 July 1977, before being stopped in Paris on 30 September. There he applied without success for political asylum. In spite of some protests in Germany, France and Italy, the court of criminal appeal of the Court of Appeal of Paris decides in favour of the extradition to West Germany on 16 November 1977. Croissant was extradited the following day. In a platform published in Le Monde on 2 November 1977, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari wrote:

Three things worry us immediately: the possibility that many German men of the left in an organized system of denouncement, see their life becoming intolerable in Germany, and are forced to leave their country. Conversely, the possibility that Croissant is delivered, returned to Germany where he risks the worst [Andreas Baader and its comrades had been found dead in their cells on October 18, 1977], or, simply expelled in a country of “choice” which would not accept him. Lastly, the prospect which whole Europe passes under this type of control claimed by Germany.”[1]

He was sentenced and jailed for supporting a designated terrorist organization for two and a half years. After his release, Croissant started to work for the Stasi, which registered him 1981 as Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter "IM Thaler“, Reg. Nr. XV/5231/81. His girlfriend, the taz-publisher and green member of the European Parliament Brigitte Heinrich, was led by Croissant to join his work for the Stasi till her death in 1987. In 1992 his collaboration with the Stasi was made public.

References

  1. ↑ Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (November 2, 1977) "The worst means of making Europe, Le Monde, p. 6. Included in Two modes of insane (Midnight, 2003), pp. 134–137

Sources

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