from 1970). Accusations of 'terrorist-chic' ripped through reports and reviews in Germany after the film's release last month.

The widow of one of the gang's victims, banker Juergen Ponto - his murder is as shocking as anything else in the film - has returned her Federal Cross of Merit, Germany's highest civilian honour, to the German government in protest.

Ulrike Meinhof's own daughter has slammed the film, saying it is not possible to surround her mother's crimes with greater "hero-worship". However, Joerg Schleyer, son of the kidnapped industrialist, eventually executed, is unabashed: the above-described scene is, he has said, "the only way to make clear to young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF was at the time".

Producer Bernd Eichinger, also responsible for 2003's Downfall, a harrowing depiction of Hitler's last days, denies any motive to glamorise. Whatever Baader-Meinhof claimed they stood for,

the film isn't shy of stating the obvious: they were fanatical killers. "I firmly believe," says Eichinger, "that we don't define ourselves as humans by what we say but by what we do."

Reactions to the film show that, as with so much else in 20th-century German history, people are ambivalent about exactly where they stand on matters of extreme political violence. Most were physically untouched by Baader-Meinhof and might wonder why a feature film (as opposed to a documentary, of which there've been a few) should be made about them at all.

Some might have understood, and still sympathise, with the gang's thinking, but remain appalled at their tactics. A younger generation, not born when the bombs exploded and the killings multiplied, probably think Baader-Meinhof is a rock band.

'The Baader-Meinhof Complex' is premiered at the London Film Festival on October 26.