The Turbulent Life of Ulrike Meinhof: Early Life

Ulrike Meinhof was born on October 7th 1934 to Ingeborg and Werner Meinhof in Oldenburg, Northern Germany. Her family on her father’s side was known for producing Protestant theologians. However, Dr. Werner Meinhof himself became a curator of the Jena Municipal Museum. Ingeborg’s side of the family had its roots in Hesse. Ulrike’s maternal grandfather was a cobbler’s son working as a teacher and school inspector before the Nazis prohibited him from doing so in 1933 on the grounds of his Socialist convictions.
The Meinhofs’ were a typical German bourgeois family. The parents with their two daughters, Ulrike and the four-year older Weinke, lived in an ivy-covered house in a middle-class residential area in Jena.

Childhood influences

As the influence of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party) and Hitler expanded in Germany, the family turned away from this domination and changed their affiliation from the Protestant Church, which had fallen in line with the ideologies of the time, to a small parish called the “Hessian Dissent.” It had its origins under Bismarck after the founding of the German Reich, objected to all state control over the church, and was a gathering point for church opposition to the Nazi regime.
Ulrike’s and Weinke’s childhood was overshadowed by the sudden death of their father in 1940. After the death of her husband, Ingeborg received a grant that allowed her to continue her studies in art history that she had discontinued because of her marriage.
Soon, Renate Riemeck – a nineteen year-old, clever, and dynamic history, German and art history student – moved in with the family. Hence, the girls had two mothers.
Both women opposed the Nazis, had loose contact with a resistance group in the Zeiss optical works in Jena, and listened to BBC news during the war, albeit it was strictly prohibited. Meanwhile, they passed their first state examinations.
After the war ended in 1945, Jena was occupied by the Americans who later withdrew in accordance with the Yalta agreement to then leave the area subjected to Soviet rule. As a result, the family immigrated west to Oldenburg where Ingeborg Meinhof and Renate Riemeck took their second state examinations and qualified as teachers. Both had also joined the SPD (Social Democratic Party) in 1945.
The city was overflowing with immigrants from the East and the only school that was willing to take Ulrike was the Roman Catholic School of Our Lady. The legacy of this school to Ulrike was a deep fascination with the Catholic belief during her childhood and youth.

A young woman searching for an identity

The same year Ingeborg Meinhof died of an infection that she had contracted after a cancer operation leaving Ulrike behind as an orphan at the age of 15. Renate Riemeck stayed with the two girls and seemed to have had an enormous influence on Ulrike who copied the only fourteen-year older foster mother. For example, Renate Riemeck wore trousers and had her hair cut short and so did Ulrike. Renate Riemeck published academic books and acquired the status of a professor at the Wilburg Institute of Education. At that time, Ulrike attended the Philippinium in Weiburg, a grammar school with the highest academic standards. She was known as a popular, very intelligent, and charismatic student. Her charm impressed teachers and classmates alike. In her free time, she read many books from classics to modern literature which deeply shaped her opinion and worldview.
On the one hand, Ulrike was a role model middle-class young woman and on the other hand, she cultivated rather atypical interests such as smoking the pipe as well as self-rolled cigarettes and danced boogie-woogie all night long. In contrast to what was expected of a well-behaved girl, she was not afraid to voice her opinion in school on issues concerning unjust treatments of students. She contradicted teachers publicly and passionately, which almost caused her to become expelled from school.
Expressing and living out her political interests was an essential part of her life. Ulrike was not only part of the student government and a member of the Europe movement but she also showed an interest in journalism and worked as a co-editor for her school’s magazine.

Political activism against nuclear armament

At the age of 20, following her graduation from grammar school after the successful completion of the Abitur examinations, Ulrike attended the University of Marburg on a grant from the Study Foundation of the German People (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). She started studying psychology and education and was involved in a movement of the young Protestants that worked towards incorporating more elements of the Catholic belief into the Protestant liturgy.
In 1957, Ulrike transferred to the University of Münster, where she was later elected spokeswoman of the Socialist German Student’s Union (SDS) that protested by forming an anti-atomic death committee. This topic was very delicate in Germany at the time. On April 12th, the Göttinger Declaration was published in which 18 West German atomic scientists expressed their disagreement with any nuclear armament of the Federal Republic of Germany. The scientist and Nobel Prize Winners were not the only ones that believed Germany could best protect itself and promote stability for the region and the world if it voluntarily abstained from the possession of nuclear arms. Albert Schweizer called for a halt on nuclear arm tests. These concerns sparked the activism of many young people. Trade unionists and intellectuals supported the student movement. Ulrike Meinhof became very active in the anti-nuclear armament movement: as a journalist, she published articles on the nuclear issue in a variety of student newspapers; as an activist, she helped to organize demonstrations, petitions, and a boycott of lectures.
In 1955, Renate Riemeck left the SPD because she did not agree with the rearmament of West Germany which she saw as a step towards the intensification of the Cold War. Renate Riemeck opposed Konrad Adenauer’s plans to obtain nuclear weapons and actively supported the German-Polish reconciliation through the recognition of the disputed Oder-Neisse boarder. Her attitudes conflicted with those of her employer, the Land North Rhine-Westphalia, and she consequently resigned her professorship when she was elected to the committee of the German Peace Union (Deutsche Friedensunion).
According to Stefan Aust, Ulrike Meinhof entered the political arena in May 1958 when she made a speech to 5000 neatly dressed students after a silent march through Münster. Ulrike Meinhof, with her Sophie Scholl style haircut, came across as a self-confident young peace activist and thus, caught the attention of the editorial office of the left-wing student newspaper Konkret that was devoted to the anti-nuclear movement.
In 1958, Ulrike Meinhof joined the banned Communist Party (KPD). However, she had not studied the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Luxemburg and was only familiar with the neo-Marxism of the student movement.

Ulrike Meinhof’s childhood experiences nourished her aspiration to become a politically active journalist concerned with achieving social justice.

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