Ulrike's Brain

Bruce LaBruce: "The real-life events referenced in Ulrike's Brain are not so far from a science-fiction premise. After Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, the four main members of the RAF, died under suspicious circumstances in Stammheim prison, their brains were removed by the authorities to be examined by neuropathologist Dr. Jürgen Peiffer of the University of Tübingen. Peiffer's examination of Ulrike Meinhof's brain led him to the dubious conclusion that an operation to remove a benign tumor in 1962 caused damage significant enough to have contributed directly to her subsequent terrorist behavior. Supporters of the RAF, who refused to believe that the actions of the left-wing revolutionary were the result of a sick mind, vigorously opposed this theory. The examinations of the brains of the dead revolutionaries, who some believed were murdered by the state, also conjured visions of the grotesque medical experiments conducted by the Nazis. The subsequent revelation that the four terrorist brains had mysteriously disappeared and were unaccounted for added a further level of science fiction to the entire spectacle. Only Ulrike's brain was finally located and returned to her daughters to be interred with her body in 2002. Or was it? In an even more bizarre twist, the brains of the remaining three RAF members have mysteriously disappeared, their whereabouts unknown to this day..."

Follows The Raspberry Reich (2004)