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Comment by hedgehog | Hacker News Reader

Devious. The assassination of Alfred Herrhausen is I think the textbook example of this technique:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

A few things stand out (spoilers of course) - the Chairman of Deutsche Bank had an armoured convoy with two vehicles with bodyguards. It makes sense seeing that someone was trying to kill him, but outside of that context it seems a lot. Most European politicians, including heads of state and government, have less today.

Second, he bled to death. I wonder what circumstances led to this, was the car too badly mangled and nobody could come to his aid? It's not something that happens instantaneously, i think, so there's some time to react. But maybe the blood loss couldn't be stopped ( severed legs, is there something that could be done? Would a tourniquet help?). No idea

Also rather interesting that Vladimir Putin is thought to have been involved as the RAF handler, if those sources are veritable.

Also I heard on a History podcast, but can’t yet find any supporting evidence, that the Soviet Union funded the anti-nuclear power movement in West Germany leading to a dependence on Russian Gas.

Like I said if this is credible there should be some evidence, but I’d conjecture that perhaps Putin could have been part of that too

I’d have thought people would be crowing about that if it was the case.

In a similar vein, albeit with less geopolitics, Big Oil companies funded various environmental groups' anti-nuclear stances and protests, in order to solidify their grip on the energy market.

Even now, talking about it would lead to a quicker swing back to nuclear power hurting russia's interests.

Germany is already well on its way to try out renewables in earnest, so the anti-nuclear camp's arguments seem to have convinced a majority of the voters and environmentalists, socialists, conservatives all pushed this when in power. The arguments backing this wouldn't change, so I don't think such a revelation would have a big impact on German energy policy. Besides, the pro-nuclear camp has always had very deep pockets, so I guess whatever funds the Soviet Union/Russia might have provided would have at best/worst only leveled the playing field somewhat. Disclosing this might end some careers, though.

Extremely implausible.

The anti-nuclear movement wasn't driven by money. Still isn't. The organisations that wanted nuclear power used money, the ones against used people's time.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/image/sz.1.3984639/1408x792

>1% of the population attended that demonstration, and demonstrations that big matter. But they're not a matter of payment. People weren't paid to go there, they didn't even have their travel costs reimbursed: You can't reimburse 100k people and hope to keep that secret. You can't even reimburse the ~5k organisers.

> if those sources are veritable.

Those sources are pretty shit, honestly. One says the Red Army Faction claimed responsibility (this is not disputed). The other cites an (unnamed) "former Red Army Faction" claiming they had meetings with Putin, but makes no connection with the Herrhausen assassination.

You have about three minutes for an arterial bleed. Perhaps less for two arterial bleeds. The proper technique would indeed to be tourniquet the legs, which you can do with anything (like strips of cloth) as long as you can make it tight enough.

The explosive device contained approximately 22 pounds of TNT, and detonated 3 feet away from the right rear passenger door.

a small point, but wikipedia says "The 7 kg bomb was hidden in a bag" which would be 15 lbs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen#Assassinatio...

It does say his legs were severed. So probably massive bleeding immediately and with the damage to the car, there was no chance to save him.

> When Herrhausen's motorcade approached the attack site, the lookout waited for the lead car to pass by the bike, then radioed to the terrorist in the bushes who quickly activated the beam. Herrhausen's vehicle broke the beam which triggered the electronic detonator in the bomb. The front of Herrhausen's car broke the beam at the precise moment the back right seat, where Herrhausen was sitting, was directly across from the bomb. The force of the explosion was aimed at where Herrhausen was sitting. The bomb was placed on a child's bike to match the height of the back right door of the armored vehicle. To develop this attack, the terrorists had to compute the speed of the car, the length of the car, and the height of the back right door. As his car passed the bike, at 8:34 a.m., the bike exploded and some 22 pounds of TNT propelled schrapnel through the right rear door, forcing a piece of the armored door into Herrhausen, pushing him across the back seat into the left door. The force of the explo- sion, which took place 3 feet away from the right rear door of Herrhausen's vehicle, threw the 2.8 ton armored vehicle across the street, approximately 82 feet. The driver was slightly injured.

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/153346NCJRS.pdf

>To develop this attack, the terrorists had to compute the speed of the car...

if the explosive went off more or less instantly, the speed of the car would not matter, not that it would be difficult to estimate anyway.

Please link to Desktop version of wikipedia articles [0], or articles in general.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Herrhausen

Apologies, too late to edit now.

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