Volker Schlöndorff which cast her as both a terrorist and a prostitute. The newspaper is based upon the real right-wing German tabloid "Bild-Zeitung", whose publisher Axel Springer was the inspiration for the character Werner Tötges. In Schlöndorff's view, West Germany had fallen into political hysteria over the activities of the terrorist group the Red Army Faction. The police and journalistic activities in both Böll's novel and Schlöndorff's film portrayed the Red Army Faction era as reminiscent of McCarthyism in 1950s USA, including illegal police raids, phone tapping and tabloid smears. Alhough Böll was heavily attacked after the publication of the novel, both
Army Group Courland Sixteenth and Eighteenth armies of Army Group Courland, commanded by General (of Infantry) Carl Hilpert, ended hostilities at 23:00, on 8 May 1945, surrendering to Leonid Govorov, commander of the Leningrad Front. By the evening of 9 May 1945 189,000 German troops, including 42 officers in the rank of general, in the Courland Pocket had surrendered. The aggregation of troops that became named Army Group Courland was created when the Red Army reached the Baltic Sea near the Memel river on Tuesday, 10 October 1944. As a result, what was then known as Army Group North was cut off in