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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.

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