
, influenced by:
- Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S. together with the background of counter-cultural movements.
- The writings of Mao ZedongMao ZedongMao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
adapted to Western European conditions. - Post-war writings on class society and empire as well as contemporary Marxist critiques from many revolutionaries such as Franz Fanon, Ho Chi MinhHo Chi MinhHồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
and Che GuevaraChe GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
as well as early AutonomismAutonomismAutonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
. - Philosophers associated with the Frankfurt schoolFrankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
(Jürgen HabermasJürgen HabermasJürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
, Herbert MarcuseHerbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
, and Oskar NegtOskar NegtOskar Negt is a philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory. He is Professor of Sociology at the Universität Hannover....
in particular) and associated Marxian philosophers.
RAF founder Ulrike Meinhof
had a long history in the Communist Party.
1970 The Red Army Faction is established in Germany.thumb|right|Launch of the [[Saturn INT-21]], carrying the [[Skylab]] space station.
1972 Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof is captured by police in Langenhagen.
1977 German Federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light.
1977 The Red Army Faction trial ends, with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder.
1977 Hanns Martin Schleyer, is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany by the Red Army Faction and is later murdered.
1977 Four Palestinians hijack ''Lufthansa Flight 181'' to Somalia and demand release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction.
1977 German Autumn: a set of events revolving around the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa flight by the Red Army Faction (RAF) comes to an end when Schleyer is murdered and various RAF members allegedly commit suicide.
1989 Deutsche Bank board member Alfred Herrhausen is killed by a Red Army Faction terrorist bomb.
1998 German terrorist group Red Army Faction announces their dissolution after 28 years.
, influenced by:
- Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S. together with the background of counter-cultural movements.
- The writings of Mao ZedongMao ZedongMao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
adapted to Western European conditions. - Post-war writings on class society and empire as well as contemporary Marxist critiques from many revolutionaries such as Franz Fanon, Ho Chi MinhHo Chi MinhHồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
and Che GuevaraChe GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...
as well as early AutonomismAutonomismAutonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
. - Philosophers associated with the Frankfurt schoolFrankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
(Jürgen HabermasJürgen HabermasJürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
, Herbert MarcuseHerbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
, and Oskar NegtOskar NegtOskar Negt is a philosopher and social theorist in the tradition of critical theory. He is Professor of Sociology at the Universität Hannover....
in particular) and associated Marxian philosophers.
RAF founder Ulrike Meinhof
had a long history in the Communist Party. Holger Meins
had studied film and was a veteran of the Berlin revolt; his short feature How To Produce A Molotov Cocktail had been seen by huge audiences. Jan Carl Raspe had lived at the Kommune 2; Horst Mahler
had been an established lawyer, but was also at the center of the anti-Springer
revolt from the beginning. From their own personal experiences and assessments of the socio-economic situation they soon became more specifically influenced by Leninism
and Maoism
, calling themselves 'Marxist-Leninist' though they effectively added to or updated this ideological tradition. A contemporaneous critique of the Red Army Faction's view of the state, published in a pirate edition of Le 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.
It is claimed that property destruction during the Watts Riots
in the United States in 1965 influenced the practical and ideological approach of the RAF founders as well as some of those in Situationist circles.
The writings of Antonio Gramsci
and Herbert Marcuse
were drawn upon. Gramsci wrote on power, cultural and ideological conflicts in society and institutions—real-time class struggles playing out in rapidly developing industrial nation states through interlinked areas of political behaviour, Marcuse on coercion
and hegemony
in that cultural indoctrination and ideological manipulation through the means of communication ("repressive tolerance") expended the need for complete brute force in modern 'liberal democracies
'. His One-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 the ideological underpinnings and the 'superstructure
' of society was vitally important in the understanding of class control (and acquiescence). This 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 the state
, but his death prevented fulfilment of this.
Many of the radicals felt that Germany's lawmakers
were continuing authoritarian policies and the public's apparent acquiescence was seen as a continuation of the indoctrination the Nazis had pioneered in society (Volksgemeinschaft
). The Federal Republic was exporting arms to African dictatorships, which was seen as supporting the war in Southeast Asia
and engineering the remilitarization of Germany with the U.S.-led entrenchment against the Warsaw Pact
nations.
Ongoing events further catalyzed the situation. Protests turned into riots on 2 June 1967, when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, the Shah of Iran, visited West Berlin
. To hundreds of supporters of the Shah joined a group of fake supporters armed with wooden staves, to disturb the normal course of the visit of the Shah of Iran in West Berlin. These extremists were left to beat the protesters. After a day of angry protests by exiled Iranian radical marxists, a group widely supported by German students, the Shah visited the Berlin Opera
, where a crowd of German students protesters gathered. During the opera house demonstrations, German student Benno Ohnesorg
was shot 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 has now been discovered that this officer had been a member of the West Berlin communist party SEW and had also worked for the Stasi
.
Along with perceptions of state and police brutality
, and widespread opposition to the Vietnam War
, Ohnesorg's death galvanised many young Germans, and became a rallying point for the West German New Left
. The Berlin Movement 2 June
, a militant-Anarchist group later took its name to honour the date of Ohnesorg's death.
In the spring of 1968 Gudrun Ensslin
and Andreas Baader
, who were joined by Thorwald Proll
and Horst Söhnlein
, decided to set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt
as a protest against the Vietnam war, and carried out the arson attack on 2 April 1968. Two days later, on 4 April 1968, they were arrested.
Meanwhile, on 11 April 1968, Rudi Dutschke
, a leading spokesman for the protesting students, was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by the right-wing extremist
Josef Bachmann
. Although badly injured, Dutschke returned to political activism with the German Green Party before his death in a bathtub in 1979, as a consequence of his injuries.
Axel Springer's populist
newspaper Bild-Zeitung
, which had headlines such as "Stop Dutschke now!", was accused of being the chief culprit for 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."
Formation of the RAF
All four of the defendants were convicted of arson and endangering human life for which they were sentenced to three years in prison. In June 1969, however, they were temporarily paroled under an amnestyfor political prisoner
s, but in November of that year, the Federal 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 revolutionary, Régis Debray
, famous for his friendship with Che Guevara
and the focus theory of guerrilla warfare. Eventually, they made their way to Italy
, where Mahler visited them and encouraged them to return to Germany with him to form an underground guerilla group.
The Red Army Faction was formed with the intention of complementing the plethora of revolutionary and radical groups across West Germany and Europe and was to be a more class conscious
and determined force compared with some of its immediate contemporaries. The members and supporters were already associated with the 'Revolutionary Cells
' and Movement 2 June
as well as radical currents and phenomena such as the Socialist Patients' Collective
, Kommune 1
and the Situationists. The main RAF protagonists trained in the West Bank
and Gaza
with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP) guerrillas and looked to the Palestinian cause for inspiration and guidance. The organisation and outlook was partly modelled on the Uruguay
an Tupamaros
movement, which had developed as an urban resistance movement—effectively inverting Che Guevara
's Mao-like concept of a peasant or rural-based guerrilla war
and instead situating the struggle in the metropole
or cities. Many members of the RAF operated through a single contact or only knew others by their codenames. Actions were carried out by active units called 'commando
s', with trained members being supplied by a quartermaster
in order to carry out their mission. For more long-term or core cadre members, isolated cell-like organisation was absent or took on a more flexible form.
In 1969 the Brazilian revolutionary Carlos Marighella
published his Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla
. He described the urban guerrilla as:
The importance of small arms
training, sabotage
, expropriation
, and a substantial safehouse/support base among the urban population was exhorted in Marighella's guide. This publication was an antecedent to Meinhof's 'The Urban Guerrilla Concept' and has subsequently influenced many guerrilla and insurgent
groups around the globe. Although some of the Red Army Faction's supporters and operatives could be described as having an anarchist or libertarian communist slant, the group's leading members professed a largely Marxist-Leninist ideology. That said, they shied away from overt collaboration with communist state
s although RAF members did receive intermittent support and sanctuary over the border in East Germany.
After their trial for the department store arson attacks, Baader and Ensslin went into hiding, but Baader was caught again in April 1970. On 14 May 1970, Baader was freed from custody by Meinhof and others. Baader, Ensslin, Mahler, and Meinhof then went to Jordan
for their brief guerrilla warfare training with the PFLP and Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO).
Anti-imperialism and public support
When they returned to West Germany, they began what they called an "anti-imperialisticstruggle", with bank 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 the red star
logo with a Heckler & Koch MP5
submachine gun
for the first time.
Despite killing 34 people, Baader-Meinhof garnered a degree of support from the West German population. The group of militants began to be accepted if not always admired by "guilt-ridden liberals", who saw its panache
as a countercultural critique of West Germany’s "boring bourgeois life" and who resented their nation's association with the American war in Vietnam. Baader-Meinhof seized on this sentiment and carefully cultivated an outlaw image, wholesaling the ideal of authenticity of acting out one’s impulses, in order to break through "the fascism of convention", just as its heroes abroad like Che Guevara
supposedly "broke through the iron wall of America imperialism
." Drawing on its New Left
counterparts in the United States, the group even began to borrow such phrases as "burn baby burn," "right on," and "off the pigs".
After an intense manhunt, Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Holger Meins
, and Jan-Carl Raspe
were eventually caught and arrested in June 1972.
Custody and the Stammheim trial

in the newly-constructed high security Stammheim Prison
in the north of Stuttgart
. When Ensslin devised an "info system" using aliases
for each member, the four prisoners were able to communicate again, circulating letters with the help of their defence counsel
s.
To protest against their treatment by authorities, they went on several coordinated hunger strike
s; 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 the time, consisting of sympathizers independent of the inmates. This became clear when, on 27 February 1975, Peter Lorenz
, the CDU
candidate for mayor of Berlin, was kidnapped by the Movement 2 June
(allied to the RAF) as part of pressure to secure the release of several other detainees. Since none of these were on trial for murder, the state agreed, and those inmates (and later Lorenz himself) were released.
On 24 April 1975, the West German embassy in Stockholm was seized by members of the RAF; two of the hostages were murdered as the German government under Chancellor Helmut 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 in Stuttgart
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 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 of conspiracy theories
. Other theories suggest that she took her life because she was being ostracized by the rest of the group.
During the trial, more attacks took place. One of these was on 7 April 1977, when Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback
, his driver, and his bodyguard were shot and killed by two RAF members while waiting at a red traffic light.
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.
German Autumn
On 30 July 1977, Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank
, was shot and killed in front of his house in Oberursel
in a botched kidnapping. Those involved were Brigitte Mohnhaupt
, Christian Klar
, and Susanne Albrecht
, the last being the sister of Ponto's goddaughter.
Following the convictions, Hanns Martin Schleyer
, a former officer of the SS
and NSDAP member who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany) was abducted in a violent kidnapping. It has been said often that Schleyer's convoy was stopped by one of the group (Sieglinde Hofmann) pushing a pram into the road where it was to pass by. However, on 5 September 1977, Schleyer's car was in fact stopped by the kidnappers reversing a car into the path of Schleyer's vehicle, causing the Mercedes he was being driven in to crash. Once the convoy was stopped, five masked assailants immediately shot and killed the three policemen and the driver and took Schleyer hostage.
A letter then arrived with the Federal Government, demanding the release of eleven detainees, including those from Stammheim. A crisis committee was formed in Bonn
, headed by Chancellor Helmut 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 the Bundeskriminalamt
carried out its biggest investigation to date. Matters escalated when, on 13 October 1977, Lufthansa Flight 181
from Palma de Mallorca
to Frankfurt
was hijacked
. A group of four Arab
s took control of the plane (named Landshut). The leader introduced himself to the passengers as "Captain Mahmud" who would be later identified as Zohair Youssef Akache. When the plane landed in Rome for refuelling, 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 via Larnaca
to Dubai
, and then to Aden
, where flight captain Jürgen Schumann, whom the hijackers deemed not cooperative enough, was brought before an improvised "revolutionary tribunal" and executed 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 for Mogadishu
, Somalia
.
A high-risk rescue operation was led by Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski
, then undersecretary in the chancellor's office, who had secretly been flown in from Bonn. At five past midnight (CET
) on 18 October, the plane was stormed in a seven-minute assault by the GSG 9
, an elite unit of the German federal police. All four hijackers were shot; three of them died on the spot. Not one passenger was seriously hurt and Wischnewski was able to phone Schmidt and tell the Bonn crisis team that the operation had been a success.
Half an hour later, German radio broadcast the news of the rescue, to which the Stammheim inmates listened on their radios. In the course of the night, Baader was found dead with a gunshot wound in the back of his head and Ensslin was found hanged in her cell; Raspe died in the hospital the next day from a gunshot wound to the head. Irmgard Möller
, who had several stab wounds in the chest, survived and was released from prison in 1994.
The official inquiry concluded that this was a collective suicide, but again conspiracy theories abounded. However, none of these theories were ever brought forward by the RAF itself. Some have questioned how Baader managed to obtain a gun in the high-security prison wing specially constructed for the first generation RAF members. Also, only a total commitment to her cause could have allowed Möller to have herself inflicted the four stab wounds found near her heart. However, independent investigations showed that the inmates' lawyers were able to smuggle in weapons and equipment in spite of the high security. Möller claims that it was actually an extrajudicial killing, orchestrated by the German government, in response to Red Army Faction demands that the prisoners be released.
On 18 October 1977, Hanns-Martin Schleyer was shot to death by his captors en route to Mulhouse
, France. The next day, 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 green Audi 100
on the rue Charles Péguy
. The French newspaper Libération
received a letter declaring:
The events in the autumn of 1977, possibly the biggest criminal and political showdown that Germany has experienced since the end of World War II, are frequently referred to as Der Deutsche Herbst ("German Autumn").
The RAF since the 1980s
The dissolution of the Soviet Unionwas a serious blow to left-wing groups, but well into the 1990s attacks were still being committed under the name "RAF". Among these were the killing of CEO of MTU Aero Engines
, a German engineering company, Ernst Zimmermann; another bombing at the US Air Force's
Rhein-Main Air Base
(near Frankfurt
), which targeted the base commander and killed two bystanders; the car bomb
attack that killed Siemens
executive Karl-Heinz Beckurts and his driver; and the shooting of Gerold von Braunmühl, a leading official at Germany's foreign ministry.
On 30 November 1989, Deutsche Bank
chairman Alfred Herrhausen
was killed with a highly complex bomb when his car triggered a photo sensor, in Bad Homburg
. On 1 April 1991, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder
, leader of the government Treuhand
organization responsible for the privatization of the East German state economy, was shot dead. The assassins of Zimmermann, von Braunmühl, Herrhausen and Rohwedder were never reliably identified .
After German reunification
in 1990, it was confirmed that the RAF had received financial and logistic support from the Stasi
, the security and intelligence organization of East Germany, which had given several members shelter and new identities. This was already generally suspected at the time.
In 1992, the German government assessed that the RAF's main field of engagement now was missions to release former 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 in Weiterstadt
by overcoming the officers on duty and planting explosives. Although no one was seriously injured this operation caused property damage amounting to 123 million German Marks (over 50 million euros).
The last big action against the RAF took place on 27 June 1993. A Verfassungsschutz (internal secret service) agent named Klaus Steinmetz had infiltrated the RAF. As a result Birgit Hogefeld
and Wolfgang Grams
were to be arrested in Bad Kleinen
. Grams and GSG 9
officer Michael Newrzella
died during the mission. While it was initially concluded that Grams committed suicide, others claimed his death was in revenge for Newrzella's. Two eyewitness accounts supported the claims of an execution-style murder. However, an investigation headed by the Attorney General failed to substantiate such claims. Due to a number of operational mistakes involving the various police services, German Minister of the Interior Rudolf Seiters
took responsibility and resigned from his post.
On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters
news agency, signed "RAF" with the machine-gun red star, declaring the group dissolved:
Horst Mahler
has crossed the lines to the far right and is a Holocaust denier
. He is an anti-semite and in 2005 was sentenced to 6 years in prison for incitement to racial hatred. He is on record as saying that his beliefs have not changed: Der Feind ist der Gleiche (The enemy is the same).
In 2007, amidst widespread media controversy, the German president
Horst Köhler
had considered pardoning RAF member Christian Klar
, who filed a pardon application several years ago, but on 7 May 2007 this was denied. However, on 24 November 2008, parole was granted. RAF member Brigitte Mohnhaupt
was granted a release on a five year parole by a German court on 12 February 2007 and Eva Haule
was released 17 August 2007.
Faction versus Fraktion
The name was inspired by that of the Japanese Red Army, a Japanese leftist paramilitary group. The usual translation into English is the Red Army Faction; however, the founders wanted it to reflect what they saw as not so much an orthodox political faction
or splinter group but an embryonic militant unit or set of "groupuscules" that was embedded in or part of a wider communist workers' movement. The abbreviation
RAF was also a gibe at fascists and at the right, intended to recall the aerial bombing of Germany by the Royal Air Force
.
RAF versus Baader-Meinhof
The group always called itself the Rote Armee Fraktion, never the Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang. The name correctly refers to all incarnations of the organization: the "first generation" RAF, which consisted of Baader and his associates, 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 organization was generally known by these during its first generation, and applies only until Baader's death in 1977. The organization never used these terms for themselves, but the German media used them to avoid legitimizing the movement. Although Meinhof was not considered to be a leader of the gang at any time, her involvement in Baader's escape from jail in 1970 led to her name becoming attached to it.
List of assaults attributed to the RAF
Date | Place | Action | Remarks | Photo |
---|---|---|---|---|
22 October 1971 | Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808... |
Police officer killed | RAF members Irmgard Möller and Gerhard Müller attempted to rescue Margrit Schiller Margrit Schiller Margrit Schiller was a West German militant leftist associated with the Socialist Patients' Collective and later the second generation Red Army Faction.-Early life:Schiller was born in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia in March, 1948... who was being arrested by the police by engaging in a shootout. 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. |
|
22 December 1971 | Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, and from Luxembourg.Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people... |
Police officer killed | German Police officer Herbert Schoner, 32, was shot by members of the RAF in a bank robbery. The four militants escaped with 134,000 Deutsche Marks. | |
11 May 1972 | Frankfurt am Main | Bombing of US barracks | US Officer Paul A. Bloomquist dead, 13 wounded |
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12 May 1972 | Augsburg Augsburg Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a... and Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat... |
Bombing of a police station in Augsburg and the Bavarian State Criminal Investigations Agency in Munich | 5 police-officers wounded. Claimed by the Tommy Weissbecker Commando. | |
16 May 1972 | Karlsruhe Karlsruhe The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states... |
Bombing of the car of the Federal Judge Buddenberg | His wife was driving the car and was wounded. Claimed by the Manfred Grashof commando. | |
19 May 1972 | Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808... |
Bombing of the Axel Springer Verlag | 17 wounded. Ilse Stachowiak was involved in the bombing. | |
24 May 1972 18:10CET | Heidelberg Heidelberg -Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of... |
Bombing outside of Officers Club followed by a second bomb moments later in front of Army Security Agency (ASA), U.S. Army in Europe (HQ USAREUR) at Campbell Barracks Campbell Barracks Campbell Barracks, in Heidelberg, Germany, is the location of the Headquarters of the United States Army in Europe and Seventh Army Campbell Barracks, in Heidelberg, Germany, is the location of the Headquarters of the United States Army in Europe and Seventh Army Campbell Barracks, in Heidelberg,... . 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 and Captain Clyde R. Bonner), 5 wounded. Claimed by 15 July Commando (in honour of Petra Schelm). Executed by Irmgard Moeller. | |
24 April 1975 | Stockholm Stockholm Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area... |
West German embassy siege, murder of Andreas von Mirbach and Dr. Heinz Hillegaart | 4 dead, of whom 2 were RAF members | |
7 May 1976 | Sprendlingen Dreieich Dreieich is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. It lies roughly 10 km south of Frankfurt am Main and with more than 40,000 inhabitants is the district’s second biggest town.- Location :... near Offenbach |
Police officer killed | 22 year old Fritz Sippel was shot in the head when checking an RAF member's identity papers. | |
4 January 1977 | Giessen | Attack against US 42nd Field Artillery Brigade at Gießen. | In a failed attack against the Gießen Gießen Gießen, also spelt Giessen is a town in the German federal state of Hesse, capital of both the district of Gießen and the administrative region of Gießen... army base, the RAF sought to capture or destroy nuclear weapons present. A diversionary bomb attack on a fuel tank failed to fully ignite the fuel, and the assault on the armory was then repulsed, with several RAF members killed in the ensuing firefight. The presence of U.S. warheads on German soil was classified and officially denied at the time, and the incident received little publicity. General William Burns, who commanded the base in 1977, detailed the attack in a 1996 interview. |
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7 April 1977 | Karlsruhe Karlsruhe The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states... |
Assassination of the federal prosecutor-general Siegfried Buback Siegfried Buback Siegfried Buback was the Attorney General of Germany from 1974-1977.Buback studied at the University of Leipzig. From 1940 to 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. From 1945 to 1947 he was a POW... |
The driver and another passenger 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 member Peter-Jürgen Boock surfaced in media reports. | |
30 July 1977 | Oberursel Oberursel Oberursel is a town in Germany. It is located to the north west of Frankfurt, and is the second largest town in the county of Hochtaunuskreis and the 14th largest town in Hessen.-Extent of municipal area:... (Taunus) |
The director of Dresdner Bank Dresdner Bank Dresdner Bank AG was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was based in Frankfurt. It was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in December 2009.- 19th century :... , Jürgen Ponto Jürgen Ponto Jürgen Ponto, was a German banker and chairman of the Dresdner Bank board of directors. Previously, he had worked as a lawyer... , is shot in his home during an attempted kidnapping. Ponto later dies from his injuries. |
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5 September 1977 18 October 1977 |
Cologne Cologne Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the... resp. Mulhouse Mulhouse Mulhouse |mill]] hamlet) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514 and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin département, and the second largest in the Alsace region after... |
Hanns-Martin Schleyer, chairman of the German Employers' Organisation, is kidnapped and later shot | 3 police-officers and the driver are killed during the kidnapping | |
22 September 1977 | Utrecht Utrecht (city) Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features... , Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... |
Shooting outside a bar | Arie Kranenburg (46), Dutch policeman, shot and killed by RAF Knut Folkerts | |
A forest near Dortmund Dortmund Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union.... |
Murder of a police officer | Three RAF members (Angelika Speitel Angelika Speitel Angelika Speitel is a former member of the West German terrorist Red Army Faction.-Life:Speitel worked as a clerk in the office of lawyer Klaus Croissant, alongside her husband Volker Speitel . During this time she helped form an information system of communication between many imprisoned... , Werner Lotze, Michael Knoll) were engaged in target-practice when they were confronted by police. A shoot-out followed where one police-man (Hans-Wilhelm Hans, 26) was shot dead, and one of the RAF terrorists (Knoll) was wounded so badly that he would later die from his injuries. |
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1 November 1978 | Kerkrade Kerkrade Kerkrade is a town and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands.It is the western half of the divided region and de facto city, taken together with the eastern half, the German town of Herzogenrath... |
Gun-battle with four custom officials Customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country... |
Dionysius de Jong (19) was shot to death, and Johannes Goemanns (24) later died of his wounds, when they were involved in a gun-fight with RAF members (Adelheid Schulz Adelheid Schulz Adelheid "Heidi" Schulz was a member of the West German terrorist Red Army Faction.-Early life:Having trained as a nurse, Schulz moved to Karlsruhe in the early 1970s and took up residence in a flat with Günter Sonnenberg, Knut Folkerts and her boyfriend Christian Klar – who would all at a later... and Rolf Heissler) who were trying to cross the Dutch border illegally. |
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25 June 1979 | Mons Mons Mons is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. The Mons municipality includes the old communes of Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Hyon, Nimy, Obourg, Baudour , Jemappes, Ciply, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Maisières, Mesvin, Nouvelles,... , Belgium Belgium Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many... |
Alexander Haig Alexander Haig Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford... , Supreme Allied Commander Supreme Allied Commander Supreme Allied Commander is the title held by the most senior commander within certain multinational military alliances. It originated as a term used by the Western Allies during World War II, and is currently used only within NATO. Dwight Eisenhower served as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary... of NATO escapes an assassination attempt |
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. In 1993 a German Court sentenced Rolf Clemens Wagner Rolf Clemens Wagner Rolf Clemens Wagner is a former member of the Red Army Faction .-Terrorism:Wagner carried out most of his terrorists actions in the 70s, and became an active member of the second generation RAF... , a former RAF member, to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt. |
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7 August 1981 | Kaiserslautern, Germany | USAF Security Police Officer attacked in Kaiserslautern by Christian Klar and Brigitte Mohnhaupt and unknown third party. Security Police Officer on his way to work, riding a bicycle when he was attacked. | Security Police Officer survived the attack. Mohnhaupt and Klar fled the scene in a green VW. Unknown third party was injured or killed. He was never found. | |
31 August 1981 | Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz .... |
Large car-bomb explodes in the parking lot of Ramstein Air Base Ramstein Air Base Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. It serves as headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe and is also a North Atlantic Treaty Organization installation... |
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15 September 1981 | Heidelberg Heidelberg -Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of... |
Unsuccessful rocket propelled grenade attack against the car carrying the US Army's West German Commander Frederick J. Kroesen. Known involved RAF members: Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar. | ||
2 July 1982 | Nurnberg | Unsuccessful sniper attack against US ARMY Nuclear Storage Site NATO-23. 4 Civilians died the next day due to High alert of American troops / accidental shooting.(2 Adults / 2 Children) Known involved RAF members: Christian Klar. | A family of 4 hunting mushrooms came through a fence downed by storms the day after the sniper incident and were killed by members of the 3/17th Field Artillery Battalion after being shot at just hours before. The 3/17 FA Battalion were guarding the NATO 2-3 Nuclear storage site at the time. The unit was fired upon several times the night before by Christian Klar. 2 Soldiers were slightly wounded. | |
18 December 1984 | Oberammergau Oberammergau Oberammergau is a municipality in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria, Germany. The town is famous for its production of a Passion Play, its woodcarvers, and the NATO School.-Passion Play:... , West Germany West Germany West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.... |
Unsuccessful attempt to bomb a School for NATO officers. The car bomb was discovered and defused. | A total of ten incidents followed over the next month, against US, British, and French targets. | |
1 February 1985 | Gauting Gauting Gauting is a municipality in the district of Starnberg, in Bavaria, Germany with a population of approximately 20,000. It is situated on the river Würm, southwest of Munich and is a part of the Munich metropolitan area.- Geography :... |
Shooting | Ernst Zimmerman, head of the MTU MTU Aero Engines MTU Aero Engines GmbH is Germany's leading aircraft engine manufacturer. MTU develops, manufactures and provides service support for military and civil aircraft engines... is shot in the head in his home. Zimmermann died twelve hours later. The assassination was claimed by the Patsy O'Hara Patsy O'Hara Patsy O'Hara was an Irish republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army .He was born in Bishop Street, Derry, Northern Ireland. O'Hara joined Na Fianna Éireann in 1970, and in 1971 his brother Sean was interned in Long Kesh. In late 1971, he was shot and wounded by a... Commando. |
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8 August 1985 | Rhein-Main Air Base Rhein-Main Air Base Rhein-Main Air Base was a U.S. Air Force / NATO military airbase near the city of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It occupied the south side of Frankfurt International Airport. Its airport codes are discontinued.... (near Frankfurt Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010... ) |
A Volkswagen Passat exploded in the parking lot across from the base commander's building. | Two people are 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. A granite monument marks the spot where they died. Twenty people are injured. Army Spec. Edward Pimental Edward Pimental Edward F. Pimental was an United States Army specialist murdered in Germany by members of the Red Army Faction in 1985.Pimental was from New York City. Stationed with the U.S... was kidnapped and killed the night before for his military ID card which was used to gain access to the base. The French terrorist organization Action Directe is suspected to have collaborated with the RAF on this attack. Birgit Hogefeld Birgit Hogefeld Birgit Hogefeld is a former member of the West German Red Army Faction .-Early life:Born in Wiesbaden, Hogefeld joined the RAF in the eighties long after its founding members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof were dead... and Eva Haule Eva Haule Eva Sybille Haule-Frimpong was a terrorist associated with the third generation Red Army Faction. She took her abitur in Stuttgart before going underground in 1984.-Terrorist activities:... have been convicted for their involvement in this event. |
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9 July 1986 | Straßlach (near Munich Munich Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat... ) |
Shooting of Siemens-manager Karl Heinz Beckurts and driver Eckhard Groppler | ||
30 November 1989 | Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe | Bombing of the car carrying the chairman of Deutsche Bank Alfred Herrhausen Alfred Herrhausen Alfred Herrhausen was a German banker and Chairman of Deutsche Bank. From 1971 onwards he was a member of the bank's board of directors.... |
The case remained open for a long time, as the delicate method employed baffled the German prosecutors, as it could not come from guerillas like the RAF. Also, all suspects of the RAF were not charged due to alibis. However, The case is receiving new light in late 2007 by the German authorities that Stasi, the East German secret police, played a role in the assassination of Mr. Herrhausen, as the bombing method was the exactly the same one that had been developed by the Stasis. | |
1 April 1991 | Düsseldorf Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the... |
Assassination of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder Detlev Karsten Rohwedder Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was a German manager and politician, as member of the Social Democratic Party. He was manager of the Treuhandanstalt.... , at his house in Düsseldorf Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the... |
As the chief of the Treuhandanstalt, a powerful trust that controlled most state-owned assets in the former East Germany, Mr. Rohwedder was in charge of privatizing the assets of the former German Democratic Republic. | |
27 March 1993 | Weiterstadt Weiterstadt Weiterstadt is a town in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated approx. 6 km northwest of Darmstadt..... |
Attacks with explosives at the construction site of a new prison. | Led to the capture of two RAF members three months later at a train station, and a shoot-out between RAF member Wolfgang Grams Wolfgang Grams Wolfgang Grams was a member of the Red Army Faction, a German far-left terrorist organisation.-Life:Wolfgang Grams was born in Wiesbaden, Germany. His parents, Werner and Ruth Grams, were expelled from the east. Werner Grams volunteered for service in the Waffen-SS... and a GSG 9 GSG 9 The GSG 9 der Bundespolizei , is the elite counter-terrorism and special operations unit of the German Federal Police.-History and name:... squad; GSG9 officer Michael Newrzella Michael Newrzella Michael Newrzella was a German police officer and member of the GSG 9, the counter-terrorism and special operations unit of the German Federal Police... was killed before Grams shot himself, while Birgit Hogefeld Birgit Hogefeld Birgit Hogefeld is a former member of the West German Red Army Faction .-Early life:Born in Wiesbaden, Hogefeld joined the RAF in the eighties long after its founding members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof were dead... was arrested. Damage 123 million DM (over 50 million euro). The attack caused a four year delay in the completion of the site, that had been short before commissioning in 1993. |
Films
Several German film and TV productions were made about the RAF. These include Klaus Lemke's telefeature Brandstifter (Arsonists) (1969); the Volker Schloendorff adaptation of Heinrich Böll's novel Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum) (1975); Germany in Autumn
(1978), codirected by Alexander Kluge
, Volker Schloendorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
and Edgar Reitz
; Fassbinder's Die dritte Generation (The Third Generation
) (1979); Margarethe von Trotta's Die bleierne Zeit (The German Sisters) (1981); Reinhard Hauuf's Stammheim
(1986); Christian Petzold
's Die innere Sicherheit (The State I Am In
) (2000); Christopher Roth's Baader (2002); Uli Edel
adaptation of Stefan Aust
's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
(2008).
Outside Germany, films include Swiss director Markus Imhoof
's Die Reise (The Journey) (1986). On TV, there was Heinrich Breloer's Todesspiel (Death Game) (1997), a two-part docu-drama, and Volker Schloendorff's Die Stille nach dem Schuss (Rita's Legends) (2000).
There have been several documentaries: Im Fadenkreuz – Deutschland & die RAF (1997, several directors); Gerd Conradt's Starbuck Holger Meins (2001); Andres Veiel
's Black Box BRD
(2001); Klaus Stern's Andreas Baader – Der Staatsfeind (Enemy of the State) (2003); Ben Lewis's In Love With Terror, for BBC Four
(2003); and Ulrike Meinhof – Wege in den Terror (Ways into Terror) (2006).
The 2010 feature documentary Children of the Revolution
tells Ulrike Meinhof's story from the perspective of her daughter, journalist and historian Bettina Röhl.
RAF Commandos
The following is a list of all known RAF Commando Units – Most RAF units were named after deceased RAF members, others were named after deceased members of international militant left-wing groups such as the Black Panthers, Irish National Liberation Armyand the Red Brigades
.
- 15 July Commando
- 2 June Commando
- Andreas BaaderAndreas BaaderAndreas Bernd Baader was one of the first leaders of the German left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction, also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.- Life :...
Commando - Ciro Rizzato Commando
- George JacksonGeorge Jackson (Black Panther)George Lester Jackson was an American convict who became a left-wing activist, Marxist, author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang...
Commando - Gudrun EnsslinGudrun EnsslinGudrun Ensslin was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction . After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF...
Commando - Holger MeinsHolger MeinsHolger Klaus Meins was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.-As a Revolutionary:...
Commando - Ingrid Schubert Commando
- Jan-Carl RaspeJan-Carl RaspeJan-Carl Raspe was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction.- Young life :Raspe was born in Seefeld in Tirol. He was described as gentle but had difficulty communicating with other people. His father had said that he couldn't stand violence...
Commando - José Manuel SevillanoAntifascist Resistance Groups October FirstThe First of October Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups is the armed wing of the Partido Comunista de España-reconstitutido , a Spanish clandestine Maoist group aiming for the formation of a Spanish Republican state, based on the model of Maoist China....
Commando - Katharina Hammerschmidt Commando
- Khaled Aker Commando
- Manfred Grashof Commando
- Mara Cagol Commando
- Patsy O'HaraPatsy O'HaraPatsy O'Hara was an Irish republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army .He was born in Bishop Street, Derry, Northern Ireland. O'Hara joined Na Fianna Éireann in 1970, and in 1971 his brother Sean was interned in Long Kesh. In late 1971, he was shot and wounded by a...
Commando - Petra Schelm Commando
- Siegfried HausnerSiegfried HausnerSiegfried Hausner was a student member of the German Socialist Patients' Collective and later the Red Army Faction.-As a Terrorist:...
Commando - Sigurd Debus Commando
- Thomas Weissbecker Commando
- Ulrich Wessel Commando
- Ulrike MeinhofUlrike MeinhofUlrike Marie Meinhof was a German left-wing militant. She co-founded the Red Army Faction in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine Konkret. She was arrested in 1972, and eventually charged with numerous murders and the formation of a criminal...
Commando - Vincenzo Spano Commando
- Wolfgang Beer Commando
Fiction and art
- Australian-British playwright Van BadhamVan BadhamVan Badham is an Australian writer. A playwright and novelist, she writes dramas and comedies.-Early life:Van Badham was born Vanessa Badham in Sydney in 1978 . Her mother and father worked in the New South Wales gaming and track industry, with her father eventually working for the registered club...
's play Black Hands/Dead Section provides a fictionalised account of the actions and lives of key members of the RAF. It won the Queensland premier's award for literature in 2005. - Gerhard RichterGerhard RichterGerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
, a German painter whose series of works titled 18 October 1977 repainted photographs of the Faction members and their deaths. - The Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum made a painting called The murder of Andreas Baader in 1977–1978, that shows Nerdrum's personal commentary to the events in the Stammheim prison.
- Josef ŽáčekJosef ŽáčekJosef Žáček is a Czech painter. He graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1983.Josef Žáček's own visual language was based on geometric signs and later figural symbols through which he came to address universal issues of cultural identity and memory as well as wholly concrete phenomena...
, a Czech painter created a series of paintings entitled Searching in Lost Space (1993) - evocative portraits of wanted members of the Red Army Faction - that were inspired by events that had occurred in 1993 in Bad KleinenBad KleinenBad Kleinen is a municipality in the Nordwestmecklenburg district, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located on the north bank of the Schweriner See.-Geography:...
. - Heinrich BöllHeinrich BöllHeinrich Theodor Böll was one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers. Böll was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1967 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.- Biography :...
's book The Lost Honour of Katharina BlumThe Lost Honour of Katharina BlumThe Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead is a 1974 novel by Heinrich Böll....
, 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. - Cabaret VoltaireCabaret Voltaire (band)Cabaret Voltaire were a British music group from Sheffield, England.Initially composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H. Kirk and Chris Watson, the group was named after the Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland that was a centre for the early Dada movement.Their earliest performances...
, the influential industrial band from Sheffield, England, recorded a song called "Baader-Meinhof" that pondered the group's importance in history and their motivations. There are at least two different released mixes of the recording. - Walter AbishWalter AbishWalter Abish is an Austrian-American author of experimental novels and short stories.-Biography:Abish was born in Vienna, Austria to Adolph and Frieda . At a young age, his family fled from the Nazis, traveling first to Italy and Nice before settling in Shanghai from 1940 to 1949...
, How German Is It, 1980. A book about the German essence of German things like terrorism and Heidegger. Published in Germany by Günter Maschke. - Christoph HeinChristoph HeinChristoph Hein is a German author and translator.He grew up in the village Bad Düben near Leipzig. Being a clergyman's son and thus not allowed to attend the Erweiterte Oberschule, he received secondary education at a gymnasium in the western part of Berlin. After his Abitur he jobbed inter alia...
's novel In seiner frühen Kindheit ein Garten (In His Early Childhood, a Garden) deals with a fictionalized aftermath of the Grams shooting in 1993. - In 1996, British singer songwriter Luke HainesLuke HainesLuke Haines is an English musician, songwriter and author, who has recorded music under various names and with various bands, including The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.-'New Wave':...
released a 9-track album under the Baader MeinhofBaader Meinhof (album)Baader Meinhof is a 1996 album by Luke Haines, under the pseudonym Baader Meinhof. The name was given after two of the main members of the Red Army Faction, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, and the album, composed of 10 tracks, tells the history of group, since the ideas that might have inspired...
moniker. In this concept album, all songs are a romanticized retelling of the RAF actions. - In 2004, Canadian singer songwriter Neil LeytonNeil LeytonNeil Leyton is a Portuguese-Canadian singer and guitarist born in Lisbon. He has lived and played music in Toronto, London, and Stockholm.He was a founding member and songwriter in Canadian art-glam indie project The Conscience Pilate from 1995–1998, beginning a solo career in 1999. He is also the...
composed and released a song titled Ingrid Schubert. - The feature film See You at Régis Debray, written and directed by CS Leigh tells the story of the time Andreas Baader spent hiding in the apartment of Régis Debray in Paris in 1969.
- In the 2005 film MunichMunich (film)Munich is a 2005 historical fiction film about the Israeli government's secret retaliation attacks after the massacre of Israeli athletes by the Black September terrorist group during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film stars Eric Bana and was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg...
, Mossad agents pose as members of the Red Army Faction when they inadvertently share a safehouse with members of the PLOPalestine Liberation OrganizationThe Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
. - In the upcoming video game, BioShock InfiniteBioShock InfiniteBioShock Infinite is an upcoming first-person shooter video game, and the third game in the BioShock series. Previously known as "Project Icarus", it is being developed by Irrational Games for a 2012 release on the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms...
, there is a faction called the Vox Populi (Voice of the People) who are in many ways similar to the Red Army Faction in that they are a violent, radical left-wing organization with socialist ideals. - The Baader Meinhof ComplexDer Baader Meinhof KomplexThe Baader Meinhof Complex is a 2008 German film by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust...
, a 2008 movie based on Stefan AustStefan AustStefan Aust is a German journalist and was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008...
's book which was nominated in the 81st Academy Awards81st Academy AwardsThe 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
for Best Foreign Language Film.
Further reading
- Aust, StefanStefan AustStefan Aust is a German journalist and was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008...
. The Baader-Meinhof Group: The Inside Story of a Phenomenon, The Bodley Head Ltd 1987, ISBN 978-0-370-31031-2 - Baumann, BommiMichael BaumannMichael "Bommi" Baumann was one of the founders of the German organization Movement 2 June, author of a memoir, and a former militant.-Biography:Baumann was a construction worker...
. How It All Began: Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerilla, Arsenal Pulp PressArsenal Pulp PressArsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, and is noted for founding the annual Three-Day Novel Contest .Authors who have been published by Arsenal Pulp ...
1981, ISBN 978-0-88978-045-3 - Becker, JillianJillian BeckerJillian Becker is a novelist, prize-winning story-writer, critic, journalist, lecturer, best known internationally as a writer, researcher, and authority on the subject of terrorism.-Life:...
. Hitler's Children: Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist GangHitler's ChildrenHitler's Children is a 1977 biography of the West German militant left-wing group, the Red Army Faction , by South African author Jillian Becker....
, DIANE Publishing Company 1998, ISBN 978-0-7881-5472-0 or Panther edition 1978, ISBN 978-0-586-04665-4 - Hyams, Edward. Dictionary of Modern Revolution, A Lane, 1973 ISBN 978-0-7139-0476-5
- RAF. The Urban Guerilla Concept, Kersplebedeb pamphlet edition 2005 ISBN 978-1-894946-16-2; online at germanguerilla.com
- Author unknown (assumed to be Meinhof) "Berlin 1970—Manifesto for Armed Action—Build Up the Red Army!", 883 Magazine, 5 June 1970
- Usselmann, Rainer. "18. Oktober 1977: Gerhard Richter’s Work of Mourning and Its New Audience", College Art Association, Art Journal, Spring 2002. Usselmann sees Richter's large cycle of grey paintings as a work of mourning.
- Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies, University of California PressUniversity of California PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish books and papers for the faculty of the University of California, established 25 years earlier in 1868...
2004, ISBN 978-0-520-24119-0 - Vague, Tom. Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story, AK Press, 1994 ISBN 978-1-873176-47-4
- Wright, Joanne. Terrorist Propaganda: The Red Army Faction and the Provisional IRA, 1968–86, Palgrave Macmillan 1991, ISBN 978-0-312-04761-0
- Author unknown. A Herstory of the Revolutionary Cells and Rote Zora: Armed Resistance in West Germany, published by Autonomedia (Victoria, BC, Canada).
External links
- "The media’s first celebrity terrorists" Picture essay of Red Army Faction
- "History of the RAF" – detailed, sympathetic account – by Arm the Spirit, Toronto, Canada
- Red Army Faction – Communiqués and Statements – an English-language collection of all communiques and statements by the RAF
- Andrew Stevens, Red Army Fiction – An Interview With Richard Huffman – Interview with creator of Baader-Meinhof.com
- "Build Up the Red Army" English translation of 1970 manifesto from the Red Army Faction
- This is Baader-Meinhof, official site of The Gun Speaks, a future book on the Red Army Faction
- Patrick Donahue, "German Red Army Faction Victim's Son May Back Pardon" by Bloomberg News
- Denise Noe, "The Baader Meinhof Gang", at tru Crime Library website
- LabourHistory.net a collection of original Red Army Faction statements and texts
- Baader Meinhof, the First Celebrity Terrorists – slideshow by The First PostThe First PostThe First Post is a British daily online news magazine based in London. It was launched in August 2005. It publishes news, current affairs, lifestyle, opinion, arts and sports pages, and it features an online games arcade and a cinema featuring short films, virals, trailers and eyewitness news...
- Terrorist chic or debunking of a myth? Baader Meinhof film splits Germany
- Heroic Impatience By Diego Gambetta, The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, 4 March 2010 - Weiterstadt Prison Germany (after attack 1993)