Counterterrorism Cooperation Policy between the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy in the 1970s

Abstract

The present research looks at how the actions of Italian and West German police agencies changed in the 1970s and 1980s and assesses whether and to what extent their increased technological potential marked the beginning of a new approach to the surveillance of space. To address such questions, the interconnection between space, technology and police surveillance are evaluated, in order to illustrate how such a relation has transformed the practices of institutions and local actors – in this case the police forces – and given rise to a culture of security in Italy and in the Federal Republic of Germany throughout the complex turning point represented by the 1970s and 1980s in Europe.

Author

Dr. Laura di Fabio (SFB 1199, Leipzig University & University of Trier, Germany)
Laura Di Fabio is studying for a PhD in History. Her doctoral research “Two democracies, a common enemy: Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany against terrorism”, (awaiting publication in 2017, Mondadori Education) was discussed in June 2015 at the University Tor Vergata in Rome, in collaboration with Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. The study is the result of in-depth analysis of the documentation produced by the ministries of the interior and the security forces of Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) as part of the nations’ effort to safeguard democracy between 1967 and 1982: the crucial decade in which political terrorism, carried out by actors of both the extreme left and the extreme right, reached its peak in both countries. The present paper expands on a section of the doctoral research mentioned above, which has been integrated with the archival sources collected during the author’s time as a visiting scholar with a Short-term Research Grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, DAAD) at the University of Trier and as a visiting scholar at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199: “Processes of Spazialization under the Global Condition” at Leipzig University (2016–2017).