Red Terror, Green Terror: Anti-Americanism is the common thread.

BY BRET STEPHENS

Thirty years ago this month, Germany's Red Army Faction--better known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang--kidnapped Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the German employers' association, and murdered his driver and three bodyguards. Six weeks later, on Oct. 18, 1977, the RAF murdered Schleyer, too, after the West German government refused to give in to RAF demands for the release of its imprisoned leaders. That same day, three of those leaders--Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe--committed suicide. Schleyer's body was found the next day in the trunk of a car, his mouth stuffed with pine needles. An RAF communiqué announced that "we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence. . . . His death is meaningless for our pain and our rage.

"Today, Germans remember these events--collectively known as der Deutsche Herbst, or German autumn--with a degree of fascination that sometimes borders on nostalgia. (Der Spiegel devotes this week's cover story to it.) They might remember them, too, for what they say about the present: The sixth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11 is upon us, as is another manifesto from Osama bin Laden, as is another foiled terrorist attack in Germany. Is the autumn of '77 so....

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