The RAF engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shootouts with police over the course of three decades. Its activities peaked in late 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn". The RAF has been held responsible for 34 deaths, including industrialist and former Nazi SS officerHanns Martin Schleyer, theDresdner Bank headJürgen Ponto, federal prosecutorSiegfried Buback, police officers, American servicemen stationed in Germany,[10] as well as many cases ofcollateral damage, such as chauffeurs andbodyguards, with many others injured throughout its almost thirty years of activity; 26 RAF members or supporters were killed.[10] Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than theRevolutionary Cells, which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995.[11] The group was motivated byleftist political concerns and the perceived failure of their parents' generation to confront Germany'sNazi past,[10] and in later years some ex-members received support fromStasi and otherEastern Bloc security services.[12][13]
Sometimes, the group is talked about in terms of generations:
the "first generation", which consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and others;
the "second generation", after the majority of the first generation was arrested in 1972.
the "third generation", which existed in the 1980s and 1990s up to 1998, after the first generation died inStammheim maximum security prison in 1977.
On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to theReuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the submachine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved.[14] In 1999, after a robbery inDuisburg, evidence pointing toErnst-Volker Staub andDaniela Klette was found, causing an official investigation into a re-founding.[15]
The usual translation into English is the "Red Army Faction"; however, the founders wanted it to reflect not asplinter group but rather an embryonic militant unit that was embedded, in or part of, a wider communist workers' movement,[c] i.e., afraction of a whole.
The group always called itself theRote Armee Fraktion, never the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang. The name refers to all incarnations of the organization: the "first generation" RAF, which consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and others; the "second generation" RAF; and the "third generation" RAF, which existed in the 1980s and 90s. The terms "Baader–Meinhof Gang" and "Baader–Meinhof Group" were first used by the media and the government. The group never used these names to refer to itself, because it viewed itself as a co-founded group consisting of numerous members and not a group with two figureheads.
"The Red Army Faction's Urban Guerrilla Concept is not based on an optimistic view of the prevailing circumstances in the Federal Republic and West Berlin."
–The Urban Guerrilla Concept written by RAF co-founder Ulrike Meinhof (April 1971)
In West Germany there was anger among leftist youth at the post-wardenazification in West Germany andEast Germany, a process which these leftists perceived as a failure or as ineffective,[17][18] as former (actual and supposed)Nazis held positions in government and the economy.[19] TheCommunist Party of Germany had been outlawed since 1956.[20] Elected and appointed government positions down to the local level were often occupied by ex-Nazis.[19]Konrad Adenauer, the first Federal Republic chancellor (in office 1949–1963), had even appointed former Nazi juristHans Globke as Director of theFederal Chancellery of West Germany (in office 1953–1963).
The radicals regarded theconservative media asbiased – at the time conservatives such asAxel Springer, who was implacably opposed to student radicalism, owned and controlled the conservative media including all of the most influential mass-circulation tabloid newspapers. The emergence of theGrand Coalition between the two main parties, theSPD andCDU, with formerNazi Party memberKurt Georg Kiesinger as chancellor, occurred in 1966. This horrified many on the left and was viewed as a monolithic, politicalmarriage of convenience with pro-NATO, pro-capitalist collusion on the part of thesocial democratic SPD. With about 90% of theBundestag controlled by the coalition, anExtra-Parliamentary Opposition (APO) was formed with the intent of generating protest and political activity outside of government.[21] In 1972 a law was passed – theRadikalenerlass – that banned radicals or those with a "questionable" political persuasion from public sector jobs.[22]
Student activists, who associated older generations of Germans with Nazism, argued against peaceful reconciliation:
They'll kill us all. You know what kind of pigs we're up against. This is theAuschwitz generation. You can't argue with people who made Auschwitz. They have weapons and we haven't. We must arm ourselves!
RAF founderUlrike Meinhof had a long history in the Communist Party.Holger Meins had studied film and was a veteran of the Berlin revolt; his short featureHow To Produce A Molotov Cocktail was seen by huge audiences.Jan Carl Raspe lived at theKommune 2;Horst Mahler was an established lawyer but also at the center of the anti-Springer revolt from the beginning. From their personal experiences and assessments of the socio-economic situation, they soon became more specifically influenced byLeninism andMaoism, calling themselves "Marxist–Leninist" though they effectively added to or updated this ideological tradition. RAF frequently citedMao Zedong in its public statements, especially in its early years.[1] One of the Maoist doctrines emphasized by the group was the importance of organizing political resistance to bourgeois society, and that armed struggle from the fringes of society will bring the revolution into mainstream society as well, with the bourgeois state revealing its oppressive apparatus by overreacting to fringe groups and their activities.[2] A contemporaneous critique of the Red Army Faction's view of the state, published in a pirate edition ofLe Monde Diplomatique, ascribed to it "state-fetishism" – an ideologically obsessive misreading of bourgeois dynamics and the nature and role of the state in post-WWII societies, including West Germany.[26]
It is claimed that property destruction during theWatts riots in the United States in 1965 influenced the practical and ideological approach of the RAF founders, as well as some of those inSituationist circles.[27] According to one former RAF member, in meetings withKGB inDresden the group was also met byVladimir Putin, then KGB resident inEast Germany. In these meetings RAF members would discuss weapons that were needed for their activities, and pass a "shopping list" to the KGB.[13]
The writings ofAntonio Gramsci[28] andHerbert Marcuse[29][25] were drawn upon. Gramsci wrote on power, cultural, and ideological conflicts in society and institutions – real-time class struggles playing out in rapidly developing industrialnation states through interlinked areas of political behavior. Marcuse wrote oncoercion andhegemony in that cultural indoctrination and ideological manipulation through the means of communication ("repressive tolerance") dispensed with the need for complete brute force in modern 'liberal democracies'. HisOne-Dimensional Man was addressed to the restive students of the sixties. Marcuse argued that only marginal groups of students and poor alienated workers could effectively resist the system. Both Gramsci and Marcuse came to the conclusion that analyzing the ideological underpinnings and the 'superstructure' of society was vitally important to understanding class control (and acquiescence). This Gramscian and Marcusian contribution could perhaps be seen as an extension of Marx's work, as he did not cover this area in detail.Das Kapital, his mainly economic work, was meant to be one of a series of books which would have included one on society and one on thestate,[30] but his death prevented fulfillment of this.
Many of the radicals felt that Germany'slawmakers were continuing authoritarian policies from the country's past and that the public's apparent acquiescence to these policies was a consequence of the indoctrination that the Nazis had pioneered and implemented in German society (Volksgemeinschaft). The Federal Republic was exporting arms to African dictatorships, which the radicals viewed as supporting thewar in Southeast Asia and engineering the remilitarization of Germany with the U.S.-led entrenchment against theWarsaw Pact nations.
The ongoing events further catalyzed the situation. Protests turned into riots on 2 June 1967, whenMohammad Reza Pahlavi, theShah of Iran, visitedWest Berlin. There were protesters but also hundreds of supporters of the Shah,[31] as well as a group of fake supporters armed with wooden staves, there to disturb the normal course of the visit. These extremists beat the protesters. After a day of angry protests by exiled Iranian radical Marxists, a group widely supported by German students, the Shah visited theBerlin Opera, where a crowd of German student protesters gathered. During the opera house demonstrations, German student Benno Ohnesorg wasshot in the head by a police officer while attending his first protest rally. The officer,Karl-Heinz Kurras, was acquitted in a subsequent trial. It was later discovered that Kurras had been a member of theWest Berlin communist party SEW and had also worked for theStasi,[32] though there is no indication that Kurras' killing of Ohnesorg was under anyone's, including the Stasi's, orders.
Along with perceptions of state andpolice brutality, and widespread opposition to theVietnam War, Ohnesorg's death galvanized many young Germans and became a rallying point for the West GermanNew Left. The Berlin2 June Movement, a militant-Anarchist group, later took its name to honor the date of Ohnesorg's death.
On 11 April 1968,Rudi Dutschke, a leading spokesman for protesting students, was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by theright-wing sympathizerJosef Bachmann. Although badly injured, Dutschke returned to political activism with theGerman Green Party before his death in a bathtub in 1979, as a consequence of his injuries.[33]
Axel Springer'spopulist newspaperBild-Zeitung, which had run headlines such as "Stop Dutschke now!", was accused of being the chief culprit in inciting the shooting. Meinhof commented, "If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action."[34]
"World War II was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government – they were the same people who'd been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the 60s. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Due to the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up."
All four of the defendants charged with arson and endangering human life were convicted, for which they were sentenced to three years in prison. In June 1969, however, they were temporarily paroled under anamnesty forpolitical prisoners, but in November of that year, theFederal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) demanded that they return to custody. Only Horst Söhnlein complied with the order; the rest went underground and made their way to France, where they stayed for a time in a house owned by prominent French journalist and revolutionaryRégis Debray, famous for his friendship withChe Guevara and thefoco theory of guerrilla warfare. Eventually they made their way toItaly, where the lawyer Mahler visited them and encouraged them to return to Germany with him to form an underground guerrilla group.
The Red Army Faction was formed with the intention of complementing the plethora of revolutionary and radical groups across West Germany and Europe, as a moreclass conscious and determined force compared with some of its contemporaries. The members and supporters were already associated with the 'Revolutionary Cells' and2 June Movement as well as radical currents and phenomena such as theSocialist Patients' Collective,Kommune 1, and theSituationists.
Baader was arrested again in April 1970, but on 14 May 1970 he was freed by Meinhof and others. Less than a month later, Gudrun Ensslin wrote an article in a West Berlin underground paper by the name ofAgit883 (Magazine for Agitation and Social Practice), demanding a call to arms and a building of the Red Army. The article ended with the words, "Develop the class struggles. Organize the proletariat. Start the armed resistance!"[36] Baader, Ensslin, Mahler, and Meinhof then went toJordan, where they trained withPopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) andPalestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas[16] and looked to the Palestinian cause for inspiration and guidance. But RAF organization and outlook were also partly modeled on theUruguayanTupamaros movement, which had developed as an urban resistance movement, effectively invertingChe Guevara's Mao-like concept of a peasant or rural-basedguerrilla war and instead situating the struggle in themetropole or cities.[37][38]
Many members of the RAF operated through a single contact or only knew others by their codenames. Actions were carried out byactive units called 'commandos', with trained members being supplied by aquartermaster in order to carry out their mission. For more long-term or corecadre members, isolated cell-like organization was absent or took on a more flexible form.
...a person who fights the military dictatorship with weapons, using unconventional methods.... The urban guerrilla follows a political goal, and only attacks the government, big businesses, and foreign imperialists.
The importance ofsmall arms training,sabotage,expropriation, and a substantialsafehouse/support base among the urban population was stressed in Marighella's guide. This publication was an antecedent to Meinhof'sThe Urban Guerrilla Concept and has subsequently influenced many guerrilla andinsurgent groups around the globe.[40] Although some of the Red Army Faction's supporters and operatives could be described as having ananarchist orlibertarian communist slant, the group's leading members professed a largelyMarxist–Leninist ideology. That said, they shied away from overt collaboration withcommunist states, arguing along the lines of the Chinese side in theSino-Soviet split that the Soviet Union and its European satellite states had become traitors to the communist cause by, in effect if not in rhetoric, giving the United States a free pass in their exploitation of Third World populations and support of "useful" Third World dictators. Nevertheless, RAF members did receive intermittent support and sanctuary over the border inEast Germany during the 1980s.[41]
"The Baader–Meinhof Gang drew a measure of support that violent leftists in the United States, like the Weather Underground, never enjoyed. A poll at the time showed that a quarter of West Germans under forty felt sympathy for the gang and one-tenth said they would hide a gang member from the police. Prominent intellectuals spoke up for the gang's righteousness [as] Germany even into the 1970s was still a guilt-ridden society. When the gang started robbing banks, newscasts compared its members to Bonnie and Clyde. (Andreas) Baader, a charismatic action man indulged in the imagery, telling people that his favourite movies were Bonnie and Clyde, which had recently come out, and The Battle of Algiers. The pop poster of Che Guevara hung on his wall, [while] he paid a designer to make a Red Army Faction logo, a drawing of a machine gun against a red star."
When they returned to West Germany, they began what they called an "anti-imperialistic struggle", withbank robberies to raise money and bomb attacks against U.S. military facilities, German police stations, and buildings belonging to the Axel Springer press empire. In 1970, a manifesto authored by Meinhof used the name "RAF" and thered star logo with aHeckler & Koch MP5submachine gun for the first time.[42]
After an intense manhunt, Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Meins, and Raspe were eventually caught and arrested in June 1972.
After the arrest of the protagonists of the first generation of the RAF, they were held insolitary confinement in the newly constructed high securityStammheim Prison north ofStuttgart. When Ensslin devised an "info system" usingaliases for each member (names deemed to have allegorical significance fromMoby Dick),[43] the four prisoners were able to communicate, circulating letters with the help of their defensecounsel.
To protest against their treatment by authorities, they went on several coordinatedhunger strikes; eventually, they were force-fed.Holger Meins died of self-induced starvation on 9 November 1974. After public protests, their conditions were somewhat improved by the authorities.
The so-called second generation of the RAF emerged at that time, consisting of sympathizers independent of the inmates. On 27 February 1975,Peter Lorenz, theCDU candidate for mayor of Berlin, was kidnapped by the2 June Movement as part of pressure to secure the release of several non-RAF detainees, alongside estranged member Horst Mahler (who declined to be freed). Since none of these were on trial for murder, the state agreed, and those inmates (and later Lorenz himself) were released.
According to Aust, the success of this operation led to the RAF themselves to attempt their own exchange: on 24 April 1975, theWest German embassy in Stockholm was seized by members of the RAF; two of the hostages were murdered as the German government under ChancellorHelmut Schmidt refused to give in to their demands. Two of the hostage-takers died from injuries they suffered when the explosives they planted detonated later that night.
On 21 May 1975, the Stammheim trial of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Raspe began, named after the district inStuttgart where it took place. The Bundestag had earlier changed the Code of Criminal Procedure so that several of the attorneys who were accused of serving as links between the inmates and the RAF's second generation could be excluded.
On 9 May 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was found dead in her prison cell, hanging from a rope made from jail towels. An investigation concluded that she had hanged herself, a result hotly contested at the time, triggering a plethora ofconspiracy theories. Alternative theories suggest that she took her life because she was being ostracized by the rest of the group. Her comrades consistently denied this hypothesis, repudiating alleged jailhouse recordings cited as evidence.[44]
During the trial, more attacks took place. One of these was on 7 April 1977, when Federal ProsecutorSiegfried Buback, his driver, and his bodyguard were shot and killed by two RAF members while waiting at a red traffic light. Buback, who had been a Nazi member during WWII, was considered by RAF as one of the key persons for their trial. Among other things, two years earlier, while being interviewed byStern magazine, he stated that "Persons like Baader don't deserve a fair trial."[45] In February 1976, when interviewed byDer Spiegel he stated that "We do not need regulation of our jurisdiction, national security survives thanks to people like me andHerold [chief ofBKA], who always find the right way".[46]
Eventually, on 28 April 1977, the trial's 192nd day, the three remaining defendants were convicted of several murders, more attempted murders, and of forming a terrorist organization; they were sentenced to life imprisonment.[47][48]
A new section ofStammheim Prison was built especially for the RAF and was considered one of the most secure prison blocks around the world at the time. The prisoners were transferred there in 1975 (three years after their arrest). The roof and the courtyard were covered with steel mesh. During the night, the precinct was illuminated by 54 spotlights and twenty-three neon bulbs. Special military forces, including snipers, guarded the roof. Four hundred police officers along with theFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitution patrolled the building. The mounted police officers rotated on a double shift. One hundred moreGSG-9 tactical police officers reinforced the police during the trial whileBKA detectives guarded the front of the court area. Finally, helicopters overflew the area.[49]: 549
During the trial, accredited media correspondents had to pass a police road block 400 meters from the court. The police noted their data and the number-plate and photographed their cars. After that they had to pass three verification audits, and finally they were undressed and two judicial officials thoroughly searched their bodies. They were allowed to keep only a pencil and a notepad inside the court. Their personal items including their identity papers were withheld by the authorities during the trial. Every journalist could attend the trial only twice (two days).The Times questioned the possibility whether a fair trial could be conducted under these circumstances which involved siege-like conditions.Der Spiegel wondered whether that atmosphere anticipated "the condemnation of the defendants who were allegedly responsible for the emergency measures".[50]
While the trial progressed, the prisoners received visits from lawyers (and on rare occasions relatives; friends were not allowed). For those visits, three jailers were always present to observe the conversations between prisoners and visitors. The prisoners were not allowed to meet each other inside the prison, until late 1975 when a regular meeting time was established (30 minutes, twice per day), during which they were guarded.
The judges and their pasts are considered important by supporters of the accused. Judge Weiss (Mahler's trial) had judged Joachim Raese (president of the Third Reich's court) as innocent seven times.[citation needed] When he threatened Meinhof that she would be put into a glass cage she answered caustically, "So you are threatening me with Eichmann's cage, fascist?" (Adolf Eichmann who was anObersturmbannführer in theSS, was held inside a glass cage during his trial in Israel.)Siegfried Buback, the RAF's main trial judge in Stammheim, had been a Nazi Party member. Along with Federal Prosecutor Heinrich Wunder (who served as senior government official in the Ministry of Defense), Buback had ordered the arrest ofRudolf Augstein and other journalists regarding theSpiegel affair in 1962. Theodor Prinzing was accused by defense attorneyOtto Schily of having been appointed arbitrarily, displacing other judges.[49]: 547
At several points in the Stammheim trial, microphones were turned off while defendants were speaking. They were often expelled from the hall, and other actions were taken. It was later revealed that the conversation they had between themselves as well as with their attorneys were recorded. Finally it was reported by both the defendants' attorneys and some of the prison's doctors that the physical and psychological state of the prisoners held in solitary confinement and white cells was such that they could not attend the long trial days and defend themselves appropriately. By the time the Stammheim trial began in early 1975, some of the prisoners had already been in solitary confinement for three years.[49]
Two former members of the RAF, Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Gerhard Müller, testified under BKA's orders, as revealed later. Their statements were often contradictory, something that was also commented on in the newspapers. Ruhland himself later reported toStern that his deposition was prepared in cooperation with police.[51] Müller was reported to "break" during the third hunger strike in the winter of 1974–1975 which lasted 145 days. The prosecution offered him immunity for the murder of officer Norbert Schmidt in Hamburg (1971), and blamed Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin, and Raspe instead. He was eventually freed and relocated to the US after getting a new identity and 500,000Deutsche Marks.[citation needed]
The government hastily approved several special laws for use during the Stammheim trial. Lawyers were excluded from trial for the first time since 1945, after being accused of various inappropriate actions, such as helping to form criminal organizations (Section 129, Criminal Law). The authorities invaded and checked the lawyers' offices for possible incriminating material. Minister of JusticeHans-Jochen Vogel boasted that no other Western state had such extensive regulation to exclude defense attorneys from a trial.Klaus Croissant,Hans-Christian Ströbele, Kurt Groenewold, who had been working preparing for the trial for three years, were expelled the second day of the trial. On 23 June 1975, Croissant, Ströbele (who had already been expelled), and Mary Becker were arrested, and in the meantime police invaded several defense attorneys' offices and homes, seizing documents and files. Ströbele and Croissant were remanded and held for four and eight weeks respectively. Croissant had to pay 80,000 Deutsche Marks and report weekly to a police station, and his transport and identity papers were seized.[49]: 545–572
The defense lawyers and prisoners were not the only ones affected by measures adopted for the RAF trial. On 26 November 1974 an unprecedented mobilization by police andGSG-9 units arrested 23 suspected RAF members, invaded dozens of homes, left-wing bookstores, and meeting places, and made arrests. No guerrillas were found.[citation needed] BKA's chief, Horst Herold stated that despite the fact that "large-scale operations usually don't bring practical results, the impression of the crowd is always a considerable advantage".[52]
On 16 February 1979 Croissant was arrested (on the accusation of supporting a criminal organization – section 129) after France denied his request for political asylum, and was sentenced to a prison term of two and half years to be served inStammheim prison.
The general approach by defendants and their attorneys was to highlight the political purpose and characteristics of the RAF.
On 13 and 14 January 1976 the defendants readied their testimony (about 200 pages), in which they analyzed the role of imperialism and its fight against the revolutionary movements in the countries of the "third world". They also expounded the fascistization of West Germany and its role as an imperialistic state (in alliance with the U.S. over Vietnam). Finally they talked about the task of urban guerrillas and undertook the political responsibility for the bombing attacks. Finally their lawyers (following Ulrike Meinhof's proposal) requested that the accused be officially regarded asprisoners of war.[49]
On 4 May (five days before Meinhof's death) the four defendants demanded to be allowed to provide data about the Vietnam War. They claimed that because the military intervention in Vietnam by the U.S. (and, indirectly, the FRG) had violated international law, the U.S. military bases in West Germany were justifiable targets of international retaliation. They requested several politicians (likeRichard Nixon andHelmut Schmidt) as well as some former U.S. agents (who were willing to testify) to be called as witnesses.
Later when their requests were rejected, U.S. agents Barton Osbourne (ex-CIA, ex-member of thePhoenix Program), G. Peck (NSA), and Gary Thomas gave extensive interviews (organized by defense lawyers) on 23 June 1976 where they explained how FRG support was crucial for U.S. operations in Vietnam. Peck concluded that the RAF "was the response to criminal aggression of the U.S. government in Indochina and the assistance of the German government. The real terrorist was my government."[53][full citation needed] Thomas presented data about the joint operations of FRG and U.S. secret services in Eastern Europe. He had also observed the Stammheim trial and referred to a CIA instructor teaching them how to make a murder look like a suicide. These statements were confirmed by the CIA case officerPhilip Agee.[49]
The RAF has been associated with various serious criminal acts (including bombings, kidnappings and murder) since their founding. The first criminal act attributed to the group after the studentBenno Ohnesorg had been killed by a policeman in 1967 wasthe bombing of the Kaufhaus Schneider department store. On 2 April 1968, affiliates of the group firebombed the store and caused an estimated US$200,000 in property damage.[citation needed] Prominent members of the bombing includedAndreas Baader andGudrun Ensslin, two of the founders of the RAF. The bombs detonated at midnight when no one was in the store and no one was injured. As the bombs ignited, Gudrun Ensslin was at a nearby payphone, yelling to theGerman Press Agency, "This is a political act of revenge."[citation needed]
On 11 May 1972, the RAF placed three pipe bombs at a United States headquarters inFrankfurt. The bombing resulted in the death of a US officer and the injury of 13 other people. The stated reason for the bombing was a political statement in protest of US imperialism, specifically, a protest of US mining of North Vietnam harbours.[54]
On 19 May 1972, members of the RAF armed five bombs in theSpringer publishing house in Hamburg. Only three of the five bombs exploded, but 36 people were injured.[55]
On 24 May 1972, two weeks after the bombing of the United States headquarters in Frankfurt, the group set off a car bomb at the IDHS (Intelligence Data Handling Service) Building atCampbell Barracks inHeidelberg. The bombing resulted in the deaths of three soldiers and the injury of five others.[56]
On 10 November 1974, the group killedGünter von Drenkmann, the president of thestate court of Berlin. The killing occurred after a string of events that led to a failed kidnapping by the 2 June Movement, a group that splintered off the RAF after the death ofHolger Meins by hunger strike in prison.[57]
Starting in February 1975 and continuing through March 1975, the 2 June Movement kidnappedPeter Lorenz, who at the time was theChristian Democratic candidate in the race for the mayor of West Berlin. In exchange for the release of Lorenz, the group demanded that several RAF and 2 June Movement members that were imprisoned for reasons other than violence be released from jail. The government obliged and released several of these members for the safe release of Lorenz.[58]
On 24 April 1975, six members affiliated with the RAFseized the West German Embassy in Stockholm. The group took hostages and set the building to explode. They demanded the release of several imprisoned members of the RAF. The government refused the request, which led to the murder of two of the hostages. A few of the bombs that were intended to blow up the embassy prematurely detonated, which resulted in the death of two of the six RAF affiliates. The other four members eventually surrendered to the authorities.[citation needed]
In May 1975, several British intelligence reports circulated that stated that the RAF had stolenmustard gas from a joint U.S. and British storage facility. The reports also indicated that the RAF had intended to use the stolen gas in German cities. It eventually turned out that the mustard gas canisters were merely misplaced; however, the RAF still successfully capitalized on the news by frightening several different agencies.[59]
In the 1970's, the RAF was involved in several raids, taking advantage ofSwitzerland's loosely guarded military armories. According to the source, the group was involved in the theft of 200 Swiss rifles, 500 revolvers, and 400 large grenades.[60]
During the early 1980s, German and French newspapers reported that the police had raided an RAF safe house in Paris and had found a makeshift laboratory that contained flasks full ofClostridium botulinum, which makesbotulinum toxin. These reports were later found to be incorrect; no such lab was ever found.[61]
Following the convictions,Hanns Martin Schleyer, a former officer of theSS who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany), wasabducted in a violent kidnapping. On 5 September 1977, Schleyer's convoy was stopped by the kidnappers reversing a car into the path of Schleyer's vehicle, causing the Mercedes in which he was being driven to crash. Once the convoy was stopped, five masked assailants immediately shot and killed three policemen and the driver and took Schleyer hostage. One of the group (Sieglinde Hofmann) produced her weapon from a pram she was pushing down the road.[63]
A letter was then received by the federal government, demanding the release of eleven detainees, including those in Stammheim. A crisis committee was formed inBonn, headed by ChancellorHelmut Schmidt, which, instead of acceding, resolved to employ delaying tactics to give the police time to discover Schleyer's location. At the same time, a total communication ban was imposed on the prison inmates, who were now allowed visits only from government officials and the prison chaplain.
The crisis dragged on for more than a month, while theFederal Criminal Police Office carried out its biggest investigation to date. Matters escalated when, on 13 October 1977,Lufthansa Flight 181 fromPalma de Mallorca toFrankfurt washijacked. A group of fourPFLP members took control of the plane (which was namedLandshut). The leader introduced himself to the passengers as "Captain Mahmud", and was later identified asZohair Youssif Akache [de]. When the plane landed in Rome for refueling, he issued the same demands as the Schleyer kidnappers, plus the release of two Palestinians held in Turkey and payment of US$15 million.
The Bonn crisis team again decided not to give in. The plane flew on viaLarnaca, thenDubai, and then toAden, where flight captain Jürgen Schumann, whom the hijackers deemed not cooperative enough, was brought before an improvised "revolutionary tribunal" and murdered on 16 October. His body was dumped on the runway. The aircraft again took off, flown by the co-pilot Jürgen Vietor, this time headed forMogadishu,Somalia.
A high-risk rescue operation was led byHans-Jürgen Wischnewski, then undersecretary in the chancellor's office, who had been secretly flown in from Bonn. At five past midnightCET on 18 October, the plane was stormed in a seven-minute assault byGSG 9, an elite unit of the German federal police. All four hijackers were shot; three of them died on the spot. None of the passengers were seriously hurt and Wischnewski was able to phone Schmidt and tell the Bonn crisis team that the operation had been a success.
After the conclusion of the Landshut hostage crisis was announced in the late evening of 17 October, all the RAF members incarcerated in Stammheim committed suicide during the following night. Their lawyer, Arndt Müller, had smuggled pistols into the prison.[citation needed] Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves with these weapons – Baader in the back of his head[64] – while Gudrun Ensslin hanged herself.Irmgard Möller tried to kill herself with a knife, but survived severely injured. The suicides went unnoticed until early next morning, at which time doctors were rushed in. Baader and Ensslin were already dead when found. Raspe was still alive and moved to the hospital where he died soon after. Möller recovered after being brought to a hospital.[65] Authorities claimed that the prisoners – who had been held in isolation for weeks[66] – learned of the failure of the hijacking through smuggled radio equipment, and coordinated the group suicide over an improvised electronic communication system between their maximum-security cells, which had been under surveillance during previous hostage crises.[67]
The coordinated attempt sparked numerousconspiracy theories. It was alleged that the RAF members did not kill themselves, but instead were killed by the German authorities, theBND,CIA, the United States andNATO. These theories were spread by RAF supporters and sympathizers, and some were taken up by the mainstream press. Available evidence shows that these suicides were planned and prepared for a long time by the RAF members.[68][69]
On the very same day,Hanns-Martin Schleyer was shot to death by his captors en route toMulhouse, France. On 19 October, Schleyer's kidnappers announced that he had been "executed" and pinpointed his location. His body was recovered later that day in the trunk of a greenAudi 100 on RueCharles Péguy. The French newspaperLibération received a letter declaring:
After 43 days we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence... His death is meaningless to our pain and our rage... The struggle has only begun. Freedom through armed, anti-imperialist struggle.
AfterGerman reunification in 1990, it was confirmed that theStasi, the security and intelligence organization ofEast Germany, had been monitoring the RAF, and in the 1980s had provided ten ex-members shelter and new identities.[70] This was already generally suspected at the time.[71][72][page needed] In 1978 part of the group was exfiltrated throughYugoslavia tocommunist Poland to avoid a manhunt in Germany.Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Peter Boock, Rolf Wagner, and Sieglinde Hoffmann spent most of the year in facilities of thePolish Ministry of Public Security inMasuria, northeastern Poland, where they were also going through series of training programs along with others from Arab countries.[73]
In 1992, the German government assessed that the RAF's main field of engagement now was missions to release imprisoned RAF members. To weaken the organization further the government declared that some RAF inmates would be released if the RAF refrained from violent attacks in the future. Subsequently, the RAF announced their intention to "de-escalate" and refrain from significant activity.
The last action taken by the RAF took place in 1993 with a bombing of a newly-built prison inWeiterstadt by overcoming the officers on duty and planting explosives. Although no one was seriously injured, this operation caused property damage amounting to 123 million Deutsche Marks (over 50 million euros).
Historians and the German authorities have much more clarity about the names and actions of the first and second generations of the RAF than is the case with the third generation. The lawyer and author Butz Peters describes the third generation of the RAF as a "black box": The members have learned from the mistakes of the first and second generations. "You were up to date with the latest forensic technology" In addition, you were much more reserved in your actions. "The first generations had many supporters and many members who at some point became soft. The third generation learned from this that they lived very conspiratorially and insularly."[74]
On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to theReuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the machine-gun red star, declaring the group dissolved:
Almost 28 years ago, on 14 May 1970, during a liberation operation, the RAF formed. Today we end this project. The urban guerrilla in the form of the RAF is history now.[14] (German:Vor fast 28 Jahren, am 14. Mai 1970, entstand in einer Befreiungsaktion die RAF. Heute beenden wir dieses Projekt. Die Stadtguerilla in Form der RAF ist nun Geschichte.)
In response to this statement, formerBKA PresidentHorst Herold said, "With this statement the Red Army Faction has erected its own tombstone."[75]
In 2007, amidst widespread media controversy,German presidentHorst Köhler considered pardoning RAF memberChristian Klar, who had filed a pardon application several years before. On 7 May 2007, pardon was denied; regular[d] parole was later granted on 24 November 2008.[81] RAF memberBrigitte Mohnhaupt was granted release on five-year parole by a German court on 12 February 2007 andEva Haule was released 17 August 2007.
In 2011, the last imprisoned RAF member,Birgit Hogefeld, was released on parole.[82]
Police in Europe investigating the whereabouts of Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette stated that a search had been made in Spain, France and Italy.[83] This followed reports that they could be hiding in the Netherlands in 2017 after being suspected of masterminding robberies in supermarkets and cash transit vehicles inWolfsburg,Bremen andCremlingen between 2011 and 2016.[84][85][86] On 26 February 2024, Daniela Klette was arrested in Berlin; according to coverage inThe Guardian, Klette's arrest followed an investigative TV report about the missing trio, which sparked 250 independent tips to local police about their whereabouts.[87]
According to scholarly research into Stasi documents, RAF members in East Germany were trained and assisted by personnel from theStasi Arbeitsgruppe des Ministers S.[12]
RAF members Irmgard Möller and Gerhard Müller attempted to rescueMargrit Schiller who was being arrested by the police for engaging in a shootout.[88] Police sergeant Heinz Lemke was shot in the foot, while Sergeant Norbert Schmid, 33, was killed, becoming the first murder to be attributed to the RAF.[89]
Bombing outside of Officers' Club followed by a second bomb moments later in front of Army Security Agency (ASA), U.S. Army in Europe (HQUSAREUR) atCampbell Barracks. Known involved RAF members: Irmgard Möller and Angela Luther, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Meins, Jan-Carl Raspe.
3 dead (Ronald A. Woodward, Charles L. Peck andCaptain Clyde R. Bonner), 5 wounded. Claimed by 15 July Commando (in honour ofPetra Schelm). Executed byIrmgard Moeller.
Attack against US 42nd Field Artillery Brigade at Giessen
In a failed attack against the Giessen army base, the RAF sought to capture or destroy nuclear weapons present.[92] A diversionary bomb attack on a fuel tank failed to fully ignite the fuel.[93][94]
The driver Wolfgang Göbel and judicial officer Georg Wurster were also killed. Claimed by the Ulrike Meinhof Commando. This murder case was brought up again after the 30-year commemoration in April 2007 when information from former RAF memberPeter-Jürgen Boock surfaced in media reports.
3 police-officers, Reinhold Brändle (41); Helmut Ulmer (24); Roland Pieler (20); and the driver Heinz Marcisz (41) are also killed during the kidnapping.
Three RAF members (Angelika Speitel,Werner Lotze, Michael Knoll) were engaged in target practice when they were confronted by police. A shootout followed where one policeman (Hans-Wilhelm Hans, 26)[96] was shot dead, and one of the RAF members (Knoll) was wounded so badly that he later died from his injuries.[97]
Dionysius de Jong (19) was shot to death, and Johannes Goemanns (24) later died of his wounds, when they were involved in a gunfight with RAF membersAdelheid Schulz andRolf Heissler[99] who were trying to cross the Dutch border illegally.[96]
A land mine blew up under the bridge on which Haig's car was traveling, narrowly missing Haig's car and wounding three of his bodyguards in a following car.[100] In 1993 a German Court sentencedRolf Clemens Wagner, a former RAF member, to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt.[100]
Unsuccessful rocket propelled grenade attack against the car carrying the US Army's West German CommanderFrederick J. Kroesen. Known involved RAF members: Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar.
Unsuccessful sniper attack against US Army Nuclear Storage Site NATO-23.
A family of four (two adults and two children) who were out hunting mushrooms, made their way through a broken fence the day after the sniper incident and were killed in an accidental shooting by members of the 3/17th Field Artillery Battalion, who were on high alert. They were guarding the NATO 2–3 Nuclear storage site at the time and had been fired upon several times the night before by Christian Klar, when two US soldiers had been slightly wounded and one killed.[citation needed]
Ernst Zimmerman, head of theMTU is shot in the head in his home. Zimmermann died twelve hours later. The assassination was claimed by thePatsy O'Hara Commando.[citation needed]
Two people killed: Airman First Class Frank Scarton and Becky Bristol, a U.S. civilian employee who also was the spouse of a U.S. Air Force enlisted man.[102] A granite monument marks the spot where they died. Twenty people were also injured. Army Spec.Edward Pimental was kidnapped and killed the night before for his military ID card which was used to gain access to the base. The French revolutionary organizationAction Directe is suspected to have collaborated with the RAF on this attack.Birgit Hogefeld andEva Haule have been convicted for their involvement in this event.
Bombing of the car carrying the chairman of Deutsche BankAlfred Herrhausen (killed)
The case remained open for a long time, as the advanced explosive method employed baffled German prosecutors, as it could not have been the work of guerrillas like the RAF. Also, all suspects of the RAF were not charged due to alibis. However, the case received new light in late 2007 when German authorities learned that theStasi, the former East German secret police, may have played a role in the assassination of Herrhausen, as the bombing method was exactly the same as one that had been developed by the Stasi.
Led to the capture of two RAF members three months later at a train station, and a shoot-out between RAF memberWolfgang Grams and aGSG 9 squad; GSG9 officerMichael Newrzella was killed before Grams allegedly was shot, whileBirgit Hogefeld was arrested. Damage totaling 123 millionDeutsche Marks (over 50 millioneuros). The attack caused a four-year delay in the completion of the site that was planned to open in 1993.
The following is a list of all known RAF Commando Units.[104] Most RAF units were named after deceased RAF members, while others were named after deceased members of international militant left-wing groups such as theBlack Panthers,Irish National Liberation Army, and theRed Brigades.
There have been several documentaries:Im Fadenkreuz – Deutschland & die RAF (1997, several directors); Gerd Conradt'sStarbuck Holger Meins (2001);Andres Veiel'sBlack Box BRD (2001);[105] Klaus Stern'sAndreas Baader – Der Staatsfeind (Enemy of the State) (2003); Ben Lewis'sIn Love With Terror, forBBC Four (2003);[106] andUlrike Meinhof – Wege in den Terror (Ways into Terror) (2006).
The 2010 feature documentaryChildren of the Revolution tells Ulrike Meinhof's story from the perspective of her daughter, journalist and historianBettina Röhl, whileAndres Veiel's 2011 feature filmIf Not Us, Who? provides a context for the RAF's origins through the perspective of Gudrun Ensslin's partner Bernward Vesper. In 2015, Jean-Gabriel Périot released his feature-length, found-footage documentaryA German Youth on the Red Army Faction.[107]
The2018 remake ofSuspiria features a secondary character attempting to run away to join the Red Army Faction, serving as a catalyst for the later events of the film.[108]
Heinrich Böll's bookThe Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1974) describes the political climate in West Germany during the active phase of the RAF in the seventies. Schlöndorff and Trotta (who knew the leading RAF cadre) filmed the book in 1975.
Heldon, a Frenchexperimentalelectronic rock band, released a fundraising single entitledSoutien à la RAF(support to the RAF) with one track namedBaader-Meinhof Blues
Brian Eno released a single 'B' side in 1978, entitled "RAF" (featuring a cut-up tape loop of German dialogue) named after the Red Army Faction.
The Professionals 1978 episode "Close Quarters" features a German terrorist organization known as the "Meyer-Helmut Group", and was possibly inspired by the RAF.
Cabaret Voltaire, the industrial band from Sheffield, England, recorded "Baader-Meinhof" that pondered the group's importance in history and their motivations.
The Norwegian painterOdd Nerdrum made a painting calledThe Murder of Andreas Baader in 1977–1978, that shows Nerdrum's personal commentary to the events in the Stammheim prison.
Gerhard Richter, a German painter whose series of works entitled18 October 1977 (1988) repainted photographs of the Faction members and their deaths.
Tom Clancy's 1991 novelThe Sum of All Fears features the arrest of RAF members in formerEastern Bloc countries with the cooperation of thedemocratized Soviet Union at theend of the Cold War as a major plot point. In the book, embittered RAF terrorists ally with theDemocratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine to procure a lost Israeli atomic bomb to start anuclear war. After the nuclear detonation on U.S soil, the RAF attempts to launch a ground war in Berlin with a battalion of commandeered tanks, but are wiped out in a matter of hours by the armed forces of a reunified Germany.
Christoph Hein's novelIn seiner frühen Kindheit ein Garten (In His Early Childhood, a Garden) deals with a fictionalized aftermath of the Grams shooting in 1993.
Josef Žáček, a Czech painter, created a series of paintings entitledSearching in Lost Space 1993[109] that were inspired by events that had occurred in 1993 inBad Kleinen.
In 1996, British singer songwriterLuke Haines released a 9-track album titledBaader Meinhof. In this concept album, all songs are a romanticized retelling of the RAF actions.
Australian–British playwrightVan Badham's playBlack Hands/Dead Section provides a fictionalized account of the actions and lives of key members of the RAF. It won theQueensland Premier's Literary Awards in 2005.
The 2005 feature filmSee You at Regis Debray, written and directed by C. S. Leigh, tells the story of the time Andreas Baader spent hiding in the apartment of Régis Debray in Paris in 1969.
The Red Army Faction is the inspiration and namesake for the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, also known as thefrequency illusion, acognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it. The name was coined in a 1994 letter to theSt. Paul Pioneer Press in which the writer described repeatedly noticing the name of the gang after mentioning it once.[110]
^"24 June 1976: The West German parliament passed theGerman Emergency Acts, which criminalized 'supporting or participating in a terrorist organization,' into theBasic Law." (Smith & Moncourt 2009, p. 601); "Dümlein Christine,... Joined the RAF in 1980,... the only crime she was guilty of was membership in a terrorist organization" (Smith & Moncourt 2009, p. 566).
^In Leninist terminology a "fraction" is a subset of a larger communist movement. For example, the 12 July 1921 "Theses on theStructure of Communist PartiesArchived 15 April 2012 at theWayback Machine, submitted to the Third Congress of the Comintern" states that "to carry out daily party work every member should as a rule belong to a small working group, a committee, a commission, a fraction, or a cell." Cited in Louis Proyect, "The Comintern and the German Communist Party;" or the description of the "Bolshevik-Leninist Fraction" in the articleCommunist League (UK, 1932).
^In Germany, lifelong imprisoned convicts can apply for parole after 15 years – a period in this case extended by the court due to the number of crimes – which is to be granted whenever the convict's freedom is no longer dangerous to the public.
^abDapprich, Matthias (2013).The historical development of West Germany's new left from a politico-theoretical perspective with particular emphasis on the Marxistische Gruppe and Maoist KGruppen. Books on Demand GmbH. p. 49.ISBN9783746098456.The legitimacy of violent and political resistance was also stressed by Mao Zedong, who was widely cited by the RAF in its first public statements. In contrast to the violent resistance of terrorist factions, political Maoists stressed the importance of political resistance to the bourgeois society.
^abMcDevitt, Matthew (2019).Gewalt und Gedächtnis: An Examination of Gerhard Richter's 18. Oktober 1977 in Relation to the West German Mass Media. Trinity College Digital Repository. p. 20.Acting on Carlos Marighella's influential Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla and the Maoist tenet that bringing the armed struggle from the fringes of society to the center of the metropole is the necessary precondition for meaningfully altering the superstructure, the RAF attempted to aggravate the Federal Republic into overreacting, thus exposing the unrelenting and unsympathetic mechanisms of the state.
^Escalona, Fabien; Keith, Daniel; March, Luke (17 April 2023).The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe.Springer Nature. p. 236.ISBN978-1137562647. Retrieved15 August 2025.Besides small, completely marginal, yet nevertheless notoriously violent groups (the Red Army Faction, June 2 Movement), the most significant groups of the radical left were the so-called K-gruppen (communist groups).
^"PFLP, DFLP, PFLP-GC, Palestinian leftists".cfr.org. US: Council on Foreign Relations. 31 October 2005. Retrieved25 August 2025.In 1976, breaking a PLO agreement to end terrorism outside Israeli-held territory, PFLP members joined with West German radical leftists from the Baader-Meinhof Gang to hijack an Air France flight bound for Tel Aviv and landed the plane in Entebbe, Uganda.
^Major, Patrick (1997).The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945–1956.Oxford University Press (US). p. 16.ISBN0198206933.
^Red Army Faction,"The Urban Guerilla Concept" (see also attached notes) retrieved 31 August 2007.Archived 27 September 2007 at theWayback Machine. Many of the documents of this period are ascribed to Ulrike Meinhof.
^Michael A. Lebowitz,Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, Palgrave 2003, p. 27.ISBN978-0-333-96430-9.
^National Criminal Justice Reference Service (U.S.), National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (1978). "International summaries".International Summaries.1–4: 74 – via WorldCat.
^Vague, T.,The Red Army Faction Story 1963–1994, Edinburgh 1994, p. 51
^Aust, Stefan (2008).Baader-Meinhof (Revised English ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 255,258–262, 285.(Raspe responding Judge Foth) 'But anyway, it was the Federal Prosecutor's Office that claimed to have inside knowledge of the prisoners and publicly spread the rumour of differences of opinion and tension between us after Ulrike's death.'
^Tucker, Jonathan B. (2000).Toxic terror: assessing terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.ISBN978-0262201285.OCLC42421029.[page needed]
^McAdams, David; Kornblet, Sarah (2011). "Baader-Meinhof Group (OR Baader-Meinhof Gang". In Pilch, Richard F.; Zilinskas, Raymond A. (eds.).Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense. Wiley-Liss.doi:10.1002/0471686786.ebd0012.pub2.ISBN978-0471686781.
^Spitzer, Gretel (5 August 1977). "Cartridges used to kill banker found by police".The Times.
^Clough, Patricia (6 September 1977). "Four die in kidnap of German industrialist".The Times.
^Aust, Stefan (2008).Baader-Meinhof. Oxford University Press. p. 411.
^Terhoeven, Petra (2013).Deutscher Herbst in Europa: Der Linksterrorismus der siebziger Jahre als transnationales Phänomen [The German Autumn in Europe: The leftwing terrorism of the 70s as a transnational phenomenon] (in German). Walter de Gruyter. pp. 17–21.ISBN978-3486855586.
^Aust, Stefan (2008).Baader-Meinhof. Oxford University Press. pp. 346–347.
^Aust, Stefan (2008).Baader-Meinhof. Oxford University Press. pp. 426–432.
^Schmeidel, John (October 1993). "My Enemy's Enemy: Twenty Years of Co-operation between West Germany's Red Army Faction and the GDR Ministry for State Security".Intelligence and National Security.8 (4):59–72.doi:10.1080/02684529308432225.
^Röhl, Bettina (2007).So macht Kommunismus Spaß (in German). Europäische Verlagsanstalt.ISBN978-3-434-50600-3.
^Koehler, John O. (1999).The Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police. Westview Press. p. 449.
^Mahler, Horst (25 March 2001)."Discovery of God instead of Jewish Hatred". Lecture prepared for the Conference of Revisionist Historians on 3 April 2001. The meeting was prohibited by the Lebanese government on 23 March 2001.
^Jeffrey Herf,History.UMD.eduArchived 16 October 2012 at theWayback Machine, "An Age of Murder: Ideology and Terror in Germany, 1969–1991", lecture at the German Historical Institute in Washington, 27 September 2007.
Blumenau, Bernhard (2014). "ch. 1.".The United Nations and Terrorism. Germany, Multilateralism, and Antiterrorism Efforts in the 1970s. Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-1-137-39196-4.
Charity Scribner (2014):After the Red Army Faction. Gender, Culture, and Militancy.Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231168649
J. Smith and André Moncourt (editors) (2009):The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History Vol. 1 Projectiles for the People. Kersplebedeb and PM Press, ISBN 978-1-60486-029-0
Tom Vague (2001):Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story, 1963–1993. AK Press ISBN 978-1873176474
Ryan, Mike: "The Stammheim Model – Judicial Counter-Insurgency", published inNew Studies on the Left, Vol. XIV, Nos. 1 & 2 (1989), available ongermanguerilla.com
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