The United Nations and Terrorism ― Germany, Multilateralism, and Antiterrorism Efforts in the 1970s

Bernhard Blumenau presents a thorough examination of West Germany's encounter with domestic and international terrorism in the 1970s and how the country contributed to and eventually led the international battle against terrorism at the United Nations. A study of German foreign policy but also the story of how the UN addressed terrorism in a decade that was strongly marked by this phenomenon, it provides an in-depth archival study of the German motivations for finding an international response to terrorism and the policies Germany pursued in order to achieve this at the UN. Germany's policies were driven by the sheer need for cooperation, but above all by a desire for global influence. The United Nations and Terrorism provides detailed accounts of terrorist crises involving the kidnapping and murder of diplomats, the attack on the Munich Olympics, the OPEC siege, and two aircraft hijackings to Entebbe and Mogadishu.

Bernhard Blumenau is a Research Fellow in International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. His fields of interest include German history and foreign policy, terrorism, and international organisations. He is co-editor of An International History of Terrorism: Western and Non-western Experiences (London, New York, 2013).