Greece’s Ulrike Meinhof: Pola Roupa and the Revolutionary Struggle

Abstract

Pola Roupa’s arrest in 2016 was the final nail in the coffin of Revolutionary Struggle, the first guerrilla group to emerge on Greece’s terrorist landscape after the 2002 collapse of 17 November, the country’s premier terrorist organisation for almost three decades and one of Europe’s longest-running terror gangs. Drawing on the judicial investigation findings, courtroom testimonies, RS communiqués and interviews with counter-terrorism officials, this article tells the story of Pola Roupa, the first female leader of a Greek terrorist group in an attempt to understand the political reasons and motivational factors that led to her involvement in terrorism. At the same time, the article hopefully contributes to the study and understanding of women and terrorism by providing an insight into the role and experience of a female militant inside Greece’s gender-conservative and overwhelmingly male-dominated armed struggle movement.