Storm and Silence

Astrid Proll is a figure of legend and enigma: the getaway driver for Andreas Baader, a 'terrorist' on the run, a mechanic in a London squat, and later, the visionary picture editor who defined the visual language of the 90s at Tempo magazine. For decades, her image has been consumed by the public-first on 'Wanted' posters, then in galleries-but her voice has remained guarded. In 'Storm and Silence', Proll breaks her lull, offering a rare, first-hand account of the West German 'years of lead.' Moving beyond the fetishized violence of the Red Army Faction (RAF), she traces the delicate social dynamics of radicalisation, the claustrophobia of the underground, and the brutality of solitary confinement. But this is also a British story: Proll reveals the intimate details of her escape to 1970s London, where she lived under the alias 'Anna Puttick,' finding a new community among the feminists, squatters, and the radicals of Hackney before her sensational re-arrest and the 'Friends of Astrid Proll' campaign that mobilized the UK left. Written in collaboration with art historian Boris von Brauchitsch and translated by 032c editor Shane Anderson, 'Storm and Silence' is a powerful act of reclaiming a life from the distortions of history. It is a book about how political idealism curls into violence, how the camera can both capture and imprison, and how one woman found the courage to reinvent herself in the flashbulb's afterimage.