Entebbe, the German Connection

Jul 4, 2016, 12:20 AM

Please note that the posts on The Blogs are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and neither The Times of Israel nor its partners assume any responsibility for them. Please contact us in case of abuse. In case of abuse,
Report this post.

This week, Prime Minister Netanyahu is traveling to Entebbe, Uganda to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Israeli raid that freed the Israeli and Jewish hostages from the clutches of terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Revolutionary Cells organization based in West Germany who had the cooperation of the government of Uganda then led by Idi Amin. The German terrorists were named Wilfried Bose and Brigitte Kuhlmann. Both were members of the Revolutionary Cells organization. Bose had emerged from the West German New Left in Frankfurt/Main and was the co-founder of a leftist publishing firm, Roter Stern Verlag (Red Star Press.). Both were killed in the shootout with Israeli troops. For details about the Frankfurt/Main connection to the Entebbe hijacking and “selection” in Uganda see my recently published book, Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989 (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

About the Author

Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. He has published extensively on modern German and European history, and its intersection with the Middle East. His recent publications include Three Faces of Antisemitism: Right, Left, and Islamist (Routledge, 2024), and “Free Palestine Terrorism,” The Free Press, (June 1, 2025).