Bombs and Dead:The History of the RAF

The origins of the RAF lie in the 1968 movement. Then the Red Army Faction developed into the most brutal terror group in the Federal Republic. After almost 30 years, it disbanded in 1998.

The Red Army Faction (RAF) was founded in spring 1970 around Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin. Some media therefore initially refer to the group as the Baader-Meinhof gang. The roots of the RAF go back to the student movement of the late 1960s, but its exact connection is disputed among historians. The name Red Army Faction may be meant as a provocation. How much the group sees itself as an offshoot of the Soviet army remains open. It is clear that the name stands for strength and revolutionary potential.

The RAF uses "urban guerrilla" as the central concept of its self-image. This puts it close to revolutionary associations in Latin America. Their common goal:Change the political system by a small group - also with violence.

First RAF bank robberies and bombings

It quickly becomes clear that the RAF also accepts casualties in order to achieve their goals. The first victim was Norbert Schmid, a civil investigator in Hamburg, in 1971, followed by a police officer from Kaiserslautern and, in March 1972, the head of a special commission of the Hamburg police, Hans Eckhardt. After a series of bank robberies, the RAF carried out the first bomb attack in May 1972:on the US Army headquarters in Frankfurt am Main. Shortly thereafter there were further attacks, including on the building of the Axel Springer publishing house in Hamburg and the European headquarters of the US Army in Heidelberg. The police launch a major manhunt and within a few months arrest numerous leading RAF terrorists, including the founding members Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin.

The Stammheim trial:The RAF terrorists in court

In 1975 her trial began in a specially built, highly secured courthouse in Stuttgart-Stammheim. The later Federal Minister of the Interior, Otto Schily, took part as the defendant's defense counsel. In the courtroom, he explains:"What is taking place here in this trial can only be described as the systematic destruction of all legal guarantees." He is alluding to the fact that the proceedings are accompanied by numerous irregularities:threatened witnesses, intercepted conversations between the accused and their defense attorneys, and the defendants' hunger strikes, which massively disrupt the process from the start.

RAF kidnappings in the "German Autumn"

The procedure does not bring about an end to the violence. Instead, the "second generation" of the Red Army Faction carried out increasingly brutal attacks, killing federal prosecutor General Siegfried Buback and banker Jürgen Ponto, among others. The terror reached its peak in 1977 during the so-called German Autumn, which began with the kidnapping of Employer President Hanns Martin Schleyer on September 5th. The terrorists kept the country in suspense for weeks. The situation escalated further on October 13 when a terrorist commando hijacked the Lufthansa jet "Landshut" to Mogadishu. With this action they want to free their like-minded people in Stammheim from prison. But the federal government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) does not give in and has the jet stormed by the special unit GSG 9 on October 18 - all 82 passengers survive. Just one day later, the kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer is found murdered. He is one of 34 dead attributed to the RAF.

In the high-security prison in Stammheim, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe learn that their planned liberation has failed. Only hours after the end of the "Landhut" drama, they are found dead in their cells - while the trial against them is still ongoing. The circumstances of her suicide are still disputed today and are also associated with the harsh prison conditions.

The killing never ends

A "third generation" changes strategy in the early 1980s and wants to internationalize the RAF. The killing goes on. The most prominent victims are Deutsche Bank board spokesman Alfred Herrhausen (1989) and Karsten Rohwedder, chairman of the Treuhand (1991). He is considered the last murder victim of the RAF. In 1992, Minister of Justice Klaus Kinkel (FDP) set an example and declared that the state must be reconciled with the RAF where appropriate. The terrorist group responded in one of its ideological statements with the words:"We, the revolutionary metropolitan front, have the power to check the imperialist aggression that is starting from here."

The end of the RAF:many questions remain unanswered

On April 20, 1998, the news agency Reuters received an eight-page letter in which the RAF declared:"Today we are ending this project". The authors remain unknown, but investigators believe the paper is authentic. The RAF file, however, still employs state protectors. Many crimes could not be cleared up, the Federal Criminal Police Office is still looking for suspected members of the group.