What is a Kite? The Secret Message from Prison
News News blog
A kite is a secretly transmitted message from a prisoner to fellow inmates or people outside the prison. The word comes from prison slang.
Kites have probably existed for as long as prisons have. Even in the Middle Ages, prisoners tried to communicate with the outside world through creative methods. However, some kites gained particular fame in the 20th century:
During the Nazi era, imprisoned regime opponents smuggled secret messages out of prisons to organize consistent statements. The convicted war criminal Albert Speer also managed to smuggle thousands of pages of records out of the war crimes prison in Spandau.
In the 1970s, kites from the RAF terrorists in Stammheim made headlines. Among other things, with the help of their lawyers, the prisoners succeeded in exchanging messages and letting them reach the outside world.
But even though kites are often associated with spectacular criminal cases, they mostly serve a simple human need: to maintain contact with relatives and friends and to escape the isolation of imprisonment. In Germany, the transmission of kites is an administrative offense. Nevertheless, prisoners keep finding ways and means to send messages across prison walls.
