MATRIX SQUARED

would have spotted the cell where Ulrike Meinhof, the charismatic
leader of Germany's left-wing terror group of the 1970s, the Red Army
Faction, had hanged herself in 1976.

Since then, Stammheim prison had been redesignated a male-only
jail. But Detlef was taken there by a female officer. As soon as the
inmates saw a woman, they went wild, screaming obscenities from
their cells about what they would like to do with her.

With every step, Detlef's fear about his new circumstances grew.
How did a respectable middle-class boy find himself in this situation?
He had finished high school with excellent grades and was preparing
to go to college. His parents adored him and were grateful for all his
help with his three younger siblings. Now the harmless boy from
Eislingen was in Stammheim, the most notorious detention facility in
all Germany. After stripping and searching him, the warders gave him
oversized prison clothes, but no shoes. His new pyjamas looked so big
they reminded him of wading trousers. Food arrived, but he had not
yet fully understood that he was there to stay. He was in shock. Slowly
he realised that this was the final stage of the little journey he had
begun five years earlier. It was just one day after his twentieth birthday.