Children of the Revolution

Ulrike Meinhof of the German Red Army Faction and Fusako Shigenobu of the Japanese Red Army were perhaps the most famous female freedom fighters of the last century. In , their own daughters tell their side of the story. Interspersed with old news and interview excerpts from the sixties, seventies and eighties, we get a nuanced picture of their mothers. We hear theories about the influence of brain surgery, which might explain Meinhof's certifiable behavior. Then there's Meinhof's plan to get her children trained for the revolution in the Middle East, and how confusing it can be when you want to play school instead of Red Army tag. Bettina Röhl, Meinhof's daughter, was 13 when her mother committed suicide in prison. Many still worship Meinhof, but her daughter knows better. She and her sister never had a normal childhood, and she calls her mother's fanaticism "the beginning of the end of a happy family. She wanted the right thing, but chose the wrong way." What's the right way to improve the world then? Fusako Shigenobu's daughter Mei chose journalism and goes about her business as objectively as she can: "From where you start history, things look differently." Bettina is a journalist as well - in 2006, she published an award-winning book about her parents and the German Left.