background
Kidnappings, attacks and murders – the Red Army Faction tried to destabilize the Federal Republic for almost 30 years. The consequences of their terror extend to the present day.
The struggle of the left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction (RAF) lasted almost 30 years. By its dissolution in April 1998, the RAF killed 34 people and injured more than 200. An overview of the group’s development.
The beginnings of the RAF
The RAF initially became known as the Baader-Meinhof Group. After the fatal shot by a police officer at the student Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, 1967 and the assassination attempt on the chairman of the Socialist German Student Association (SDS), Rudi Dutschke, in 1968, parts of the so-called ’68 movement radicalized.
In protest against the Vietnam War, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and two others carried out arson attacks on two department stores in Frankfurt am Main in 1968. The journalist Ulrike Meinhof comes into contact with them during the court case.
In May 1970, Meinhof and three accomplices forcibly freed Baader from prison in Berlin. This action is considered to be the birth of the RAF. The group goes underground.
The RAF sees itself as part of the class struggle and a global uprising against imperialism and capitalism. Their name refers to the army of the communist Soviet Union. With its armed struggle and the concept of an alleged urban guerrilla, it compares itself to global liberation movements.
They describe themselves as a “communist anti-imperialist urban guerrilla.” It becomes their goal to psychologically destabilize the state through violent attacks. Three RAF generations emerge one after the other.
First attacks
The RAF began committing crimes in 1970, including bank robberies. The group committed its first murder in 1971 on the Hamburg police officer Norbert Schmid. He is shot while trying to arrest members of the RAF.
In May 1972, left-wing terrorists carried out a bomb attack on the headquarters of the US armed forces in Frankfurt am Main, killing a US soldier. The letter of confession refers to the Vietnam War.
By the end of 1974, the group around Baader, Ensslin and Meinhof committed numerous bank robberies and bomb attacks, including on US military facilities and German security authorities. Four people die and 41 are injured. They had previously received military training in Jordan from the Palestinian organization Fatah.
RAF kidnappings in the “German Autumn”
More bomb attacks followed with deaths and injuries – including at the Springer publishing house and several police stations. Shortly afterwards, the RAF’s leading figures were arrested: Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and other members of the command level were taken into custody. They will be tried in a newly built justice complex in Stuttgart-Stammheim for this purpose.
Parallel to the criminal proceedings, the so-called second generation of the RAF developed from their circle of sympathizers. It cooperates closely logistically and tactically with Palestinian terrorist groups from the Middle East. The second generation unleashes a massive wave of terror to free the RAF founders.
In the spring and summer of 1977, the RAF shot Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback and the Dresdner Bank boss Jürgen Ponto, then the so-called German Autumn followed: The RAF kidnapped employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer, and at the same time allied Palestinian terrorists brought the Lufthansa plane “Landshut” into their own Force. The GSG9 special unit liberated the machine on October 18, 1977 in the Somali capital Mogadishu, and the employers’ president Hanns Martin Schleyer was murdered by the RAF. Baader and Ensslin commit suicide while in custody in Stammheim.
The final phase
The leading figures of the second generation then initially go into hiding abroad, but gradually return and are caught in the following years due to the immense pressure of the search. From the mid-1980s onwards, the third RAF generation became active. It shifts the focus again to attacks on representatives of the US military; in 1985, two people were killed in a bomb attack on a US base in Frankfurt am Main.
Business leaders are also targeted by the terrorist group. Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen died in a bomb attack on his car in 1989. In 1991, an RAF sniper shot the head of the Treuhandanstalt, Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, in his house. He is the group’s last attack victim.
In 1993, the group carried out a final bomb attack on an unused new prison building in Weiterstadt, Hesse. Nobody gets hurt. After that, the terrorist group becomes quiet. She ended her fight with a letter of self-dissolution that she sent to the media by post on April 20, 1998.
Much is still unclear
According to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the RAF murdered 34 people during its years of existence. In addition to the more prominent victims, Dutch border officials, German police officers, company car drivers and a passerby died in attacks or exchanges of fire during arrest attempts. 26 trials against leading members of the RAF ended in life sentences; the last trial took place in 1998.
Many details from the organization’s earlier inner workings and the course of its attacks remain unknown. It is not yet clear who exactly killed Buback, Ponto, Schleyer and Herrhausen.
To date, hardly anything is known about the third RAF generation in particular. The few members that have even been identified include Daniela Klette, Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub. After the dissolution of the RAF, the three suspected former terrorists remain underground and therefore remain on the wanted lists. For Klette, at least, her year-long escape ended on Monday in Berlin – she was arrested.