View source for Red Army Faction

{{Short description|West German far-left militant organisation (1970–1998)}} 
{{redirect|Baader-Meinhof}}
{{Distinguish|Red Army Faction (Japan)}}
{{Distinguish|Royal Air Force}}
{{use American English|date=July 2019}}
{{use dmy dates|date=January 2020}}
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{{Infobox militant organization
| name             = Red Army Faction
| native_name      = Rote Armee Fraktion
| native_name_lang = de
| image            = RAF-Logo.svg
| image_size       = 
| caption          = Later design of the RAF's insignia showing a [[red star]] and a [[Heckler & Koch MP5|Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun]]
| active           = {{ubl|{{Start and end dates|1970|5|14|1998|4|20|df=yes}}<br>({{Age in years and days|1970|5|14|1998|4|20}})}}
| founded          = 
| ideology         = {{Plainlist|
* [[Communism]]
* [[Marxism–Leninism]]
* [[Maoism]]{{refn|<ref name="dapprich_quote">{{cite book |title=The historical development of West Germany's new left from a politico-theoretical perspective with particular emphasis on the Marxistische Gruppe and Maoist KGruppen |year=2013 |last=Dapprich |first=Matthias |isbn=9783746098456 |publisher=Books on Demand GmbH |page=49 |quote="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."}}</ref><ref name="devitt_quote">{{cite book |title=Gewalt und Gedächtnis: An Examination of Gerhard Richter's 18. Oktober 1977 in Relation to the West German Mass Media |year=2019 |first=Matthew |last=McDevitt |publisher=Trinity College Digital Repository |page=20 |quote="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."}}</ref>}}
* [[Revolutionary socialism]]
* [[Anti-fascism]]
* [[Anti-imperialism]]
}}
| position         = [[Far-left politics|Far-left]]{{refn|<ref>{{cite book |last1=Escalona |first1=Fabien |last2=Keith |first2=Daniel |last3=March |first3=Luke |date=2023-04-17 |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wTu6EAAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Springer Nature]] |page=236 |isbn=978-1137562647 |quote=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). |access-date=2025-08-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2005-10-31 |title=PFLP, DFLP, PFLP-GC, Palestinian leftists |url=https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/pflp-dflp-pflp-gc-palestinian-leftists |website=cfr.org |location=US |publisher=Council on Foreign Relations |quote=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. |access-date=2025-08-25}}</ref>}}
| founder          = {{Plainlist|
* [[Andreas Baader]]{{KIA|Suicide pact}}
* [[Ulrike Meinhof]]{{KIA|Suicide}}
* [[Gudrun Ensslin]]{{KIA|Suicide pact}}
* [[Horst Mahler]]
}}
| leaders          = 
| clans            = 
| headquarters     = 
| area             = {{ubl|[[West Germany]] <br>  (until 1990)|[[Germany]] <br>  (from 1990)|[[France]]|[[Netherlands]]|[[Sweden]]}}
| allies           = {{flag|East Germany}} <br> {{flag|Ba'athist Syria}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Morrison |first1=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KcVe3hEd08wC&dq=Red+Army+Faction+syria&pg=PA84 |title=Syria |last2=Woog |first2=Adam |date=2009 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0581-9 |language=en}}</ref> <br> {{flag|South Yemen}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clark |first=Victoria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PvzhTAzNWgAC |title=Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes |page=121 |date=2010-02-23 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-16734-4 |language=en}}</ref> <br> {{flag|PFLP}} <br> {{flag|PLO}} <br> {{flagicon image|Action Directe.svg}} [[Action Directe]]<br> {{flagicon image|Flag of the Brigate Rosse.svg}} [[Red Brigades|Brigate Rosse]]
| opponents        = {{ubl|{{flag|West Germany}} <br> (until 1990)|{{flag|Germany}} <br> (from 1990)|{{flag|United States}}}}
| partof           = 
| successor        = 
| split            = 
| battles          = {{ubl|[[West German Embassy siege in Stockholm]]|[[German Autumn]]}}
| designated_as_terror_group_by = {{flag|West Germany}}
| url              = 
| status           = 
}}
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The '''Red Army Faction''' ({{Langx|de|Rote Armee Fraktion}}, {{IPA|de|ˌʁoːtə ʔaʁˈmeː fʁakˌtsi̯oːn|pron|De-Rote Armee Fraktion.ogg}}; '''RAF''' {{IPA|de|ˌɛʁʔaːˈʔɛf||De-RAF.ogg}}),<ref group="lower-alpha">See the section "[[#Name|Name]]"</ref> also known as the '''Baader–Meinhof Group''' or '''Baader–Meinhof Gang''' ({{Langx|de|Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe / Baader-Meinhof-Bande|link=no}} {{IPA|de|ˈbaːdɐ ˈmaɪnhɔf ˈɡʁʊpə||De-Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe.ogg}}), was a West German [[far-left]] militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998, considered a [[Terrorism in Germany|terrorist]] organisation by the West German government.<ref group="lower-alpha">"24 June 1976: The West German parliament passed the [[German Emergency Acts]], which criminalized 'supporting or participating in a terrorist organization,' into the [[Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany|Basic Law]]." {{harv|Smith|Moncourt|2009|p=601}}; "''Dümlein Christine'',{{nbsp}}... Joined the RAF in 1980,{{nbsp}}... the only crime she was guilty of was membership in a terrorist organization" {{harv|Smith|Moncourt|2009|p=566}}.</ref> The RAF described itself as a [[communist]] and [[anti-imperialist]] [[urban guerrilla]] group. It was engaged in armed [[Resistance movement|resistance]] against what it considered a [[Fascist (epithet)|fascist]] state. Members of the RAF generally used the [[Marxist–Leninist]] term "[[political faction|faction]]" when they wrote in English.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/206.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805060322/http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/206.html |archivedate=5 August 2011|url-status=live |title='We Are Not Political Idiots!': Thoughts On The End Of The Red Army Fraction (RAF)|first=Rolf Clemens|last= Wagner|authorlink= Rolf Clemens Wagner|magazine=Jungle World|date=13 May 1998|via= Hartford Web Publishing}}</ref> Early leadership included [[Andreas Baader]], [[Ulrike Meinhof]], [[Gudrun Ensslin]], and [[Horst Mahler]]. 

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 officer [[Hanns Martin Schleyer]], the [[Dresdner Bank]] head [[Jürgen Ponto]], federal prosecutor [[Siegfried Buback]], police officers, American servicemen stationed in Germany,<ref name="Connolly"/> as well as many cases of [[collateral damage]], such as chauffeurs and [[bodyguard]]s, with many others injured throughout its almost thirty years of activity; 26 RAF members or supporters were killed.<ref name="Connolly"/> Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than the [[Revolutionary Cells (German group)|Revolutionary Cells]], which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995.<ref>[http://www.im.nrw.de/sch/387.htm IM.NRW.de] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202084458/http://www.im.nrw.de/sch/387.htm |date=2 December 2008 }}, Innenministerium Nordrhein-Westfalen: Revolutionäre Zellen und Rote Zora.</ref> The group was motivated by [[leftist]] political concerns and the perceived failure of their parents' generation to confront Germany's [[Nazi]] past,<ref name="Connolly">{{cite news |last1=Connolly |first1=Kate |title=Terrorist chic or debunking of a myth? Baader Meinhof film splits Germany |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/25/germany |website=The Guardian |date=24 September 2008 |access-date=11 June 2021}}</ref> and in later years some ex-members received support from [[Stasi]] and other [[Eastern Bloc]] security services.<ref name="Igel 2012 190ff">{{cite book |first=Regine |last=Igel |title=Terrorismus-Lügen: Wie die Stasi im Untergrund agierte |page=190ff |publisher=Herbig |year=2012 |isbn=978-3-7766-2698-8}}</ref><ref name=":2"/>

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 in [[Stammheim Prison|Stammheim maximum security prison]] in 1977.

On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the [[Reuters]] news agency, signed "RAF" with the submachine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved.<ref name="rafinfo.de">{{cite web|url=http://www.rafinfo.de/archiv/raf/raf-20-4-98.php|title=RAF-Auflösungserklärung|language=de|access-date=24 February 2009|archive-date=17 October 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017041454/http://www.rafinfo.de/archiv/raf/raf-20-4-98.php|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1999, after a robbery in [[Duisburg]], evidence pointing to [[Ernst-Volker Staub]] and [[Daniela Klette]] was found, causing an official investigation into a re-founding.<ref>Verfassungsschutzbericht Nordrhein-Westfalen 2001: [http://www.im.nrw.de/inn/doks/vs/z2001.pdf "Rote Armee Fraktion"], 2001, pp. 42 ff. ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040914050214/http://www.im.nrw.de/inn/doks/vs/z2001.pdf|date=14 September 2004}})</ref>

== Name ==
The usual translation into English is the "Red Army Faction"; however, the founders wanted it to reflect not a [[splinter group]] but rather an embryonic militant unit that was embedded, in or part of, a wider communist workers' movement,<ref group=lower-alpha>In Leninist terminology a "fraction" is a subset of a larger communist movement. For example, the 12 July 1921 "Theses on the [http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/organization/comintern_and_germany.htm Structure of Communist Parties] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415134451/http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/organization/comintern_and_germany.htm |date=15 April 2012 }}, 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 article [[Communist League (UK, 1932)]].</ref> i.e., a ''fraction'' of a whole.

The group always called itself the {{lang|de|Rote 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.

== Background ==
{{Quote box
| quote = "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."
| author = – ''The Urban Guerrilla Concept'' written by RAF co-founder Ulrike Meinhof (April 1971)
| width = 20%
}}
The origins of the group can be traced back to the 1968 [[German student movement|student protest movement in West Germany]]. Industrialised nations in the late 1960s experienced [[Counterculture of the 1960s|social upheavals]] related to the maturing of the "[[baby boomers]]", the [[Cold War]], and the end of [[colonialism]]. Newly-found [[youth culture|youth identity]] and issues such as [[racism]], [[women's liberation]], and [[anti-imperialism]] were at the forefront of [[left-wing politics]]. Many young people were alienated from their parents and the institutions of the state. The historical legacy of [[Nazism]] drove a wedge between the generations and increased suspicion of [[authoritarian]] structures in society (some analysts see the same occurring in post-fascism Italy, giving rise to {{lang|de|"[[Red Brigades|Brigate Rosse]]"}}).<ref name="Townsend">{{cite book |last=Townshend |first=Charles |year=2002 |title=Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction |series=Very Short Introductions |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-280168-5}}</ref>

In West Germany there was anger among leftist youth at the post-war [[denazification]] in West Germany and [[East Germany]], a process which these leftists perceived as a failure or as ineffective,<ref>Mary Lean, [http://www.forachange.net/columnists/detail/article/?id=2248&print=1 "One Family's Berlin"], ''Initiatives of Change'', 1 August 1988. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101123211448/http://www.forachange.net/columnists/detail/article/?id=2248&print=1 |date=23 November 2010}}</ref><ref>''[http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/connelly_captive.html The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945–1956]''. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609185524/http://uncpress.unc.edu/chapters/connelly_captive.html |date=9 June 2007}} (Denazification varied greatly across occupied/post-occupied Europe.)</ref> as former (actual and supposed) [[Nazis]] held positions in government and the economy.<ref name="Winning the Peace"/> The [[Communist Party of Germany]] had been outlawed since 1956.<ref>{{cite book |last=Major |first=Patrick |title=The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945–1956 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] (US) |page=16 |isbn=0198206933|year=1997}}</ref> Elected and appointed government positions down to the local level were often occupied by ex-Nazis.<ref name="Winning the Peace">Center for History, [http://www.history.allianz.com/history/sp/en/themen/kapitel6/index_3.html "Allianz in the Years 1933–1945 – Limits of denazification"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090506022623/http://www.history.allianz.com/history/sp/en/themen/kapitel6/index_3.html |date=6 May 2009}}; Paddy Ashdown, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/worldagenda/pdf/winning_the_peace.pdf "Winning the Peace"], ''BBC World Service'', {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070808150548/http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/worldagenda/pdf/winning_the_peace.pdf |date=8 August 2007}}</ref> [[Konrad Adenauer]], the first Federal Republic chancellor (in office 1949–1963), had even appointed former Nazi jurist [[Hans Globke]] as Director of the [[German Chancellery|Federal Chancellery]] of West Germany (in office 1953–1963).

The radicals regarded the [[Conservatism|conservative]] media as [[media bias|biased]]{{snd}}at the time conservatives such as [[Axel 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 the [[Grand Coalition (Germany)|Grand Coalition]] between the two main parties, the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|SPD]] and [[Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|CDU]], with former [[Nazi Party]] member [[Kurt Georg Kiesinger]] as chancellor, occurred in 1966. This horrified many on the left and was viewed as a monolithic, political [[marriage of convenience]] with pro-[[NATO]], pro-capitalist collusion on the part of the [[Social democracy|social democratic]] SPD. With about 90% of the [[Bundestag]] controlled by the coalition, an [[Ausserparlamentarische Opposition|Extra-Parliamentary Opposition]] (APO) was formed with the intent of generating protest and political activity outside of government.<ref>Harold Marcuse, [http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/publications/articles/1968.972.htm "The Revival of Holocaust Awareness in West Germany, Israel and the United States"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070608223219/http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/publications/articles/1968.972.htm |date=8 June 2007}}.</ref> In 1972 a law was passed{{snd}}the {{lang|de|[[Berufsverbot#The 1972 Anti-Radical Decree|Radikalenerlass]]}}{{snd}}that banned radicals or those with a "questionable" political persuasion from public sector jobs.<ref>Arthur B. Gunlicks, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1407762 "Civil Liberties in the German Public Service"], ''The Review of Politics'', Vol. 53 No. 2, Spring 1991 (extract). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417030716/http://www.jstor.org/stable/1407762 |date=17 April 2016}}.</ref>

Student activists, who associated older generations of Germans with Nazism, argued against peaceful reconciliation:
{{blockquote|They'll kill us all. You know what kind of pigs we're up against. This is the [[Auschwitz]] generation. You can't argue with people who made Auschwitz. They have weapons and we haven't. We must arm ourselves!|Gudrun Ensslin speaking after the [[Killing of Benno Ohnesorg|death of Benno Ohnesorg]].<ref>Harold Marcuse. ''Legacies of Dachau: The Uses and Abuses of a Concentration Camp, 1933–2001'', [[Cambridge University Press]], 2001,
{{ISBN|978-0-521-55204-2}}. [https://books.google.com/books?id=WOD9ncsixssC&dq=%22You+know+what+kind+of+pigs+we're+up+against%22&pg=RA1-PA314 p. 314]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170313135227/https://books.google.com/books?id=WOD9ncsixssC&pg=RA1-PA314&dq=%22You+know+what+kind+of+pigs+we%E2%80%99re+up+against%22 |date=13 March 2017}}.</ref>
}}

The radicalized were, like many in the [[New Left]], influenced by:
* Sociological developments, together with the background of [[Counter-culture|counter-cultural movements]].
* Post-war writings on [[class society]] and empire as well as contemporary [[Marxist]] critiques from many revolutionaries such as [[Frantz Fanon]], [[Ho Chi Minh]], and [[Che Guevara]], as well as early [[Autonomism]].
* Philosophers associated with the [[Frankfurt school]] ([[Jürgen Habermas]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], and [[Oskar Negt]] in particular<ref>Irving Wohlfarth, "Walter Benjamin and the Red Army Faction", ''Radical Philosophy'' 152</ref>) and associated [[Marxist philosophy|Marxist]] philosophers.<ref name="Jansen 1998">Peter-Erwin Jansen, [http://negations.icaap.org/issues/98w/jansen_01.html "Student Movements in Germany, 1968–1984"], ''Negations'' ([https://web.archive.org/web/20061009185623/http://www.icaap.org/list_journal.php?action=show_details&journal_id=11 E-journal]), No. 3, Fall 1998. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814164018/http://negations.icaap.org/issues/98w/jansen_01.html |date=14 August 2007}}.</ref>

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'' was seen by huge audiences. [[Jan Carl Raspe]] lived at the [[Kommune 2]]; [[Horst Mahler]] was an established lawyer but also at the center of the anti-[[Axel Springer AG|Springer]] revolt from the beginning. From their 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. RAF frequently cited [[Mao Zedong]] in its public statements, especially in its early years.<ref name="dapprich_quote"/> 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.<ref name="devitt_quote"/> A contemporaneous critique of the Red Army Faction's view of the state, published in a pirate edition of {{lang|fr|[[Le Monde Diplomatique]]}}, ascribed to it "state-fetishism"{{snd}}an ideologically obsessive misreading of bourgeois dynamics and the nature and role of the state in post-WWII societies, including West Germany.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://libcom.org/library/red-army-faction-baader-meinhoff-critique-grossman |title='State-Fetishism': some remarks concerning the Red Army Faction |first=A. |last=Grossman |date=7 July 2006 |orig-date=November 1977 |via=libcom.org |access-date=11 February 2015 |archive-date=15 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150115081847/http://libcom.org/library/red-army-faction-baader-meinhoff-critique-grossman |url-status=live}}</ref>

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 International|Situationist]] circles.<ref>Scribner, Charity. "Buildings on Fire: The Situationist International and the Red Army Faction". ''Grey Room'', Winter 2007, pp. 30–55.</ref> According to one former RAF member, in meetings with [[KGB]] in [[Dresden]] the group was also met by [[Vladimir Putin]], then KGB resident in [[East Germany]]. In these meetings RAF members would discuss weapons that were needed for their activities, and pass a "shopping list" to the KGB.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news |first=Catherine |last=Belton  |date=20 June 2020 |title=Did Vladimir Putin support anti-Western terrorists as a young KGB officer? |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/did-vladimir-putin-support-anti-western-terrorists-as-a-young-kgb-officer/ |access-date=2021-09-12 |website=Politico}}</ref>

The writings of [[Antonio Gramsci]]<ref>[http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/aubron_1992.html "Interview with Action Direct member Joelle Aubron"]. Retrieved 31 August 2007. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121205144342/http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/texts/aubron_1992.html |date=5 December 2012 }}. The interview covers early influences on European guerrilla groups.</ref> and [[Herbert Marcuse]]<ref>Red Army Faction, [http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/71_04.html "The Urban Guerilla Concept"] (see also attached notes) retrieved 31 August 2007. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927223412/http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/71_04.html |date=27 September 2007 }}. Many of the documents of this period are ascribed to Ulrike Meinhof.</ref><ref name="Jansen 1998"/> were drawn upon. Gramsci wrote on power, cultural, and ideological conflicts in society and institutions{{snd}}real-time class struggles playing out in rapidly developing industrial [[nation states]] through interlinked areas of political behavior. Marcuse wrote on [[coercion]] and [[hegemony]] 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 democracy|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 analyzing the ideological underpinnings and the '[[Base and superstructure|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. {{lang|de|[[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 [[Sovereign state|state]],<ref>Michael A. Lebowitz, ''Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class'', Palgrave 2003, p. 27. {{ISBN|978-0-333-96430-9}}.</ref> but his death prevented fulfillment of this.

Many of the radicals felt that Germany's [[Legislator|lawmakers]] 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 ({{lang|de|[[Volksgemeinschaft]]}}). The Federal Republic was exporting arms to African dictatorships, which the radicals viewed as supporting the [[Indochina Wars|war in Southeast Asia]] and engineering the remilitarization of Germany with the U.S.-led entrenchment against the [[Warsaw Pact]] nations.

The 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]]. There were protesters but also hundreds of supporters of the Shah,<ref>{{Cite web |title=How the Shah of Iran's visit impacted German history – DW – 06/02/2017 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/50-years-ago-how-the-shah-of-irans-visit-impacted-german-history/a-39096262 |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=dw.com |language=en}}</ref> 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 the [[Deutsche Oper Berlin|Berlin Opera]], where a crowd of German student protesters gathered. During the opera house demonstrations, German student Benno Ohnesorg was [[Killing of Benno Ohnesorg|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 was later discovered that Kurras had been a member of the [[Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin|West Berlin communist party SEW]] and had also worked for the [[Stasi]],<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/hitchens-guerrillas200908?currentPage=2|title=Christopher Hitchens on The Baader Meinhof Complex|magazine=Vanity Fair|access-date=11 February 2015|archive-date=21 December 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141221082259/http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/hitchens-guerrillas200908?currentPage=2|url-status=live}}</ref> though there is no indication that Kurras' killing of Ohnesorg was under anyone's, including the Stasi's, orders.

Along with perceptions of state and [[police brutality]], and widespread opposition to the [[Vietnam War]], Ohnesorg's death galvanized many young Germans and became a rallying point for the West German [[New Left]]. The Berlin [[2 June Movement]], a militant-Anarchist group, later took its name to honor the date of Ohnesorg's death.

On 2 April 1968, [[Gudrun Ensslin]] and [[Andreas Baader]], joined by [[Thorwald Proll]] and [[Horst Söhnlein]], [[Frankfurt department store firebombings|set fire to two department stores]] in [[Frankfurt]] as a protest against the Vietnam war. They were arrested two days later.

On 11 April 1968, [[Rudi Dutschke]], a leading spokesman for protesting students, was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by the [[Far right|right-wing]] sympathizer [[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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kingsreview.co.uk/essays/closed-material-procedures-rudi-dutschke-and-kings |title=Closed Material Procedures, Rudi Dutschke and King's |first=Nicholas |last=Purnell |date=22 March 2013 |work=King's Review |publisher=King's College, University of Cambridge |access-date=25 February 2017 |archive-date=25 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210725091341/https://www.kingsreview.co.uk/essays/closed-material-procedures-rudi-dutschke-and-kings |url-status=live }}</ref>

Axel Springer's [[populism|populist]] newspaper {{lang|de|[[Bild-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."<ref>Cited by Joshua Keating (3 January 2012), [http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/03/has_germanys_car_arson_wave_come_to_america "Has Germany's car arson wave come to America?"], ''Foreign Policy Blog''.  {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104131038/http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/03/has_germanys_car_arson_wave_come_to_america |date=4 January 2012 }}.</ref>

== Formation ==
{{more citations needed section|date=April 2017}}
[[File:Ulrike Meinhof als junge Journalistin (retuschiert).jpg|thumb|Ulrike Meinhof, 1964]]
{{Quote box
| quote = "World War II was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government{{snd}}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."
| author = – [[Stefan Aust]], author of ''[[Der Baader Meinhof Komplex]]''<ref name="NYTAust">[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/movies/16kapl.html?_r=1 A Match That Burned the Germans] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807233426/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/movies/16kapl.html?_r=1 |date=7 August 2018}} by [[Fred Kaplan (journalist)|Fred Kaplan]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 12 August 2009</ref>
| width = 20%
}}

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 an [[amnesty]] for [[political prisoner]]s, but in November of that year, the [[Federal Constitutional Court]] ({{lang|de|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 {{lang|es|[[foco]]}} theory of guerrilla warfare. Eventually they made their way to [[Italy]], 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 more [[class consciousness|class conscious]] and determined force compared with some of its contemporaries. The members and supporters were already associated with the '[[Revolutionary Cells (German group)|Revolutionary Cells]]' and [[2 June Movement]] as well as radical currents and phenomena such as the [[Socialist Patients' Collective]], {{lang|de|italic=no|[[Kommune 1]]}}, and the [[Situationist International|Situationists]].

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 of ''Agit883'' (''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!"<ref>{{cite web|title=A Terrorist Call for 'Building a Red Army' (June 5, 1970)|url=http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=897|website=German History in Documents and Images|publisher=German Historical Institute|access-date=9 April 2017|archive-date=14 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814082335/http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=897|url-status=live}}</ref> Baader, Ensslin, Mahler, and Meinhof then went to [[Jordan]], where they trained with [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]] (PFLP) and [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] (PLO) guerrillas<ref name="Townsend" /> and looked to the Palestinian cause for inspiration and guidance. But RAF organization and outlook were also partly modeled 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 warfare|guerrilla war]] and instead situating the struggle in the [[metropole]] or cities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=National Criminal Justice Reference Service (U.S.) |first=National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice |date=1978 |title=International summaries |journal=International Summaries |language=English |volume=1–4 |pages=74 |via=WorldCat}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldberg |first=Denis |title=A life for freedom: the mission to end racial injustice in South Africa |publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]] |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-8131-6646-9 |edition=Kentucky, Lexington |pages=84 |language=English}}</ref>

Many members of the RAF operated through a single contact or only knew others by their codenames. Actions were carried out by [[Covert cell|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 [[Professional revolutionaries|cadre]] members, isolated cell-like organization was absent or took on a more flexible form.

In 1969 the Brazilian revolutionary [[Carlos Marighella]] published his ''[[Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla]]''.<ref>Carlos Marighella, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm ''Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611034737/http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm |date=11 June 2008 }}, at [[marxists.org]]</ref> He described the urban guerrilla as:
{{blockquote|...{{nbsp}}a person who fights the military dictatorship with weapons, using unconventional methods.{{nbsp}}... The urban guerrilla follows a political goal, and only attacks the government, big businesses, and foreign imperialists.}}

The importance of [[small arms]] training, [[sabotage]], [[Confiscation|expropriation]], and a substantial [[safehouse]]/support base among the urban population was stressed in Marighella's guide. This publication was an antecedent to Meinhof's ''The Urban Guerrilla Concept'' and has subsequently influenced many guerrilla and [[Insurgency|insurgent]] groups around the globe.<ref><!-- Not specific enough to be useful as a reference: [http://www.marxists.org/archive/index-history.htm Marxists.org] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070822235917/http://www.marxists.org/archive/index-history.htm |date=22 August 2007 }}, Marxists internet archive. Marighella summary on influence – retrieved 31 August 2007; -->Christopher C. Harmon, [http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.60/news_detail.asp "Work in Common: Democracies and Opposition to Terrorism"], ''Papers & Studies'', Bangladesh Institute of International & Strategic Studies, July 2002 – note 9 and corresponding text. Restricted access on this website 21 June 2008. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814080842/http://www.iwp.edu/news/newsID.60/news_detail.asp |date=14 August 2007}}.</ref> Although some of the Red Army Faction's supporters and operatives could be described as having an [[Anarchism|anarchist]] or [[Anarchist communism|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, arguing along the lines of the Chinese side in the [[Sino-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 in [[East Germany]] during the 1980s.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Paxton |first1=Robert O. |title=Europe in the Twentieth Century |last2=Hessler |first2=Julie |publisher=Cengage Learning |year=2011 |isbn=978-1133171126 |pages=533 |language=en}}</ref>

=== Anti-imperialism and public support ===
{{Quote box
| quote = "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."
| author = – [[Stefan Aust]], author  of {{lang|de|[[Der Baader Meinhof Komplex]]}}<ref name="NYTAust" />
| width = 20%
}}

When they returned to West Germany, they began what they called an "[[Anti-imperialism|anti-imperialistic]] struggle", with [[Bank robbery|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.<ref>[http://www.berlin1969.com/#/troubled-times/3998813 "Build Up the Red Army!"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161010185158/http://www.berlin1969.com/#/troubled-times/3998813 |date=10 October 2016}}, originally published in German in ''883'' magazine, 5 June 1970.</ref>

After an intense manhunt, Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Meins, and Raspe were eventually caught and arrested in June 1972.

== Custody and the Stammheim trial ==
[[File:JustizvollzugsanstaltStammheim.jpg|thumb|right|Stammheim Prison]]
After the arrest of the protagonists of the first generation of the RAF, they were held in [[solitary confinement]] in the newly constructed high security [[Stammheim Prison]] north of [[Stuttgart]]. When Ensslin devised an "info system" using [[pseudonym|aliases]] for each member (names deemed to have allegorical significance from ''[[Moby Dick]]''),<ref>Vague, T., ''The Red Army Faction Story 1963–1994'', Edinburgh 1994, p. 51</ref> the four prisoners were able to communicate, circulating letters with the help of their defense [[counsel]].

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 that time, consisting of sympathizers independent of the inmates. On 27 February 1975, [[Peter Lorenz]], the [[Christian Democratic Union (Germany)|CDU]] candidate for mayor of Berlin, was kidnapped by the [[2 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, the [[West German embassy siege|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 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 of [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy 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.<ref name="Aust2008">{{cite book |last1=Aust |first1=Stefan |title=Baader-Meinhof |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=255, 258–262, 285 |edition=Revised English|quote=(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.'}}</ref>

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. 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 by ''[[Stern (magazine)|Stern]]'' magazine, he stated that "Persons like Baader don't deserve a fair trial."<ref>''[[Stern (magazine)|Stern]]'', issue 24, 1975{{full citation needed|date=June 2020}}</ref> In February 1976, when interviewed by {{lang|de|[[Der Spiegel]]}} he stated that "We do not need regulation of our jurisdiction, national security survives thanks to people like me and [[Horst Herold|Herold]] [chief of [[Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)|BKA]]], who always find the right way".<ref>Interview with Attorney-General Siegfried Buback in {{lang|de|[[Der Spiegel]]}}, 16 February 1976</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stuberger |first=Ulf G. |title=Die Tage von Stammheim: als Augenzeuge beim RAF-Prozess |date=2007 |publisher=Herbig |isbn=978-3-7766-2528-8 |location=Munich |oclc=153885400}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=Butz |title=Tödlicher Irrtum: die Geschichte der RAF |date=2004 |publisher=Argon |isbn=3-87024-673-1 |edition=2nd |location=Berlin |pages=352 |oclc=59080320}}</ref>

=== Security measures ===
A new section of [[Stammheim 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 the [[Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution]] patrolled the building. The mounted police officers rotated on a double shift. One hundred more [[GSG 9|GSG-9]] tactical police officers reinforced the police during the trial while [[Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)|BKA]] detectives guarded the front of the court area. Finally, helicopters overflew the area.<ref name="Ditfurth" />{{RP|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. {{lang|de|[[Der Spiegel]]}} wondered whether that atmosphere anticipated "the condemnation of the defendants who were allegedly responsible for the emergency measures".<ref>{{lang|de|[[Der Spiegel]]}}, 19 May 1976{{full citation needed|date=June 2020}}</ref>

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.

=== Trial ===
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|date=February 2024|reason=Cannot find any record of Joachim Raese, or indeed the first name of Judge Weiss}} 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 an {{lang|de|[[Obersturmbannführer]]}} in the [[SS]], 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 of [[Rudolf Augstein]] and other journalists regarding the [[Spiegel scandal|{{lang|de|cat=no|Spiegel}} affair]] in 1962. Theodor Prinzing was accused by defense attorney [[Otto Schily]] of having been appointed arbitrarily, displacing other judges.<ref name="Ditfurth" />{{RP|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.<ref name="Ditfurth">{{Cite book| last = Ditfurth | first = Jutta | title = Ulrike Meinhof: Die Biography | language = de | publisher = Ullstein | year = 2007 | isbn = 978-3550087288 }}</ref>

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 to {{lang|de|Stern}} that his deposition was prepared in cooperation with police.<ref>{{lang|de|[[Stern (magazine)|Stern]]}} Issue 2, 1973{{full citation needed|date=June 2020}}</ref> 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 500,000 [[Deutsche Mark]]s.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}

==== Lawyers' arrests ====
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 Justice [[Hans-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.<ref name="Ditfurth" />{{RP|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 and [[GSG 9|GSG-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|date=June 2020}} 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".<ref>Bakker Schut: Stammheim. p. 569</ref>

On 16 February 1979 Croissant was arrested (on the accusation of supporting a criminal organization&nbsp;– 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 in [[Stammheim Prison|Stammheim prison]].

=== Defense strategy ===
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 as [[Prisoner of war|prisoners of war]].<ref name="Ditfurth" />

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 (like [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Helmut 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 the [[Phoenix 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."<ref>Text of RAF pp. 496–503</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2022}} 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 officer [[Philip Agee]].<ref name="Ditfurth" />

== Criminal acts ==
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 student [[Benno Ohnesorg]] had been killed by a policeman in 1967 was [[Frankfurt department store firebombings|the 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|date=October 2021|reason=date and the cost of the property damage as that would depend on the date of the comparison.}} Prominent members of the bombing included [[Andreas Baader]] and [[Gudrun 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 the [[German Press Agency]], "This is a political act of revenge."{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

On 11 May 1972, the RAF placed three pipe bombs at a United States headquarters in [[Frankfurt]]. 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women, Gender, and Terrorism|publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]]|year=2011|isbn=978-0820335834|editor-last=Gentry|editor-first=Caron E.|pages=61|editor-last2=Sjoberg|editor-first2=Laura}}</ref>

On 19 May 1972, members of the RAF armed five bombs in the [[Axel Springer SE|Springer publishing house]] in Hamburg. Only three of the five bombs exploded, but 36 people were injured.<ref>{{cite news|last=Bahnsen|first=Uwe|title=Der Tag, an dem die RAF Axel Springer angriff|url=https://www.welt.de/regionales/hamburg/article106330282/Der-Tag-an-dem-die-RAF-Axel-Springer-angriff.html|language=de|date=17 May 2012|newspaper=Die Welt|access-date=2 May 2019|archive-date=1 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161201120829/https://www.welt.de/regionales/hamburg/article106330282/Der-Tag-an-dem-die-RAF-Axel-Springer-angriff.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

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 at [[Campbell Barracks]] in [[Heidelberg]]. The bombing resulted in the deaths of three soldiers and the injury of five others.<ref>{{cite news |title=Blasts at U.S. Base in Germany Kill 3 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/25/archives/blasts-at-us-base-in-germany-kill-3.html |work=The New York Times |issue=41760 |volume=121|date=25 May 1972}}</ref>

On 10 November 1974, the group killed [[Günter von Drenkmann]], the president of the [[Kammergericht|state 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 of [[Holger Meins]] by hunger strike in prison.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-10-03 |title=Günter von Drenkmann: Das erste Opfer des Linksterrorismus – WELT |url=https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article10918644/Das-erste-Opfer-des-Linksterrorismus.html |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=DIE WELT |language=de}}</ref>

Starting in February 1975 and continuing through March 1975, the 2 June Movement kidnapped [[Peter Lorenz]], who at the time was the [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|Christian 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bewegung 2. Juni/Movement 2 June {{!}} Mapping Militant Organizations |url=https://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/351 |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=web.stanford.edu |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616100320/http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/351 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

On 24 April 1975, six members affiliated with the RAF [[West German Embassy siege in Stockholm|seized 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|date=March 2019}}

In May 1975, several British intelligence reports circulated that stated that the RAF had stolen [[mustard 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Toxic terror: assessing terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons|date=2000|publisher=MIT Press|last=Tucker|first= Jonathan B.|isbn=978-0262201285|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|oclc=42421029}}{{Page needed|date=December 2017}}</ref>

In the 1970's, the RAF was involved in several raids, taking advantage of [[Switzerland]]'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.<ref>Hamm, Mark S (September 2005). [https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211203.pdf "Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research and Prevention"] ''U.S. Department of Justice''. Retrieved 14 September 2022.</ref>

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 of ''[[Clostridium botulinum]]'', which makes [[botulinum toxin]]. These reports were later found to be incorrect; no such lab was ever found.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McAdams|first1=David|last2=Kornblet|first2=Sarah|editor1-last=Pilch|editor1-first=Richard F.|editor2-last=Zilinskas|editor2-first=Raymond A.|title=Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense|date=2011|publisher=Wiley-Liss|isbn=978-0471686781|chapter=Baader-Meinhof Group (OR Baader-Meinhof Gang|doi=10.1002/0471686786.ebd0012.pub2}}</ref>

== German Autumn ==
{{Main|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.<ref>{{cite news |first=Gretel |last=Spitzer |title=Cartridges used to kill banker found by police |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=5 August 1977}}</ref> Those involved were [[Brigitte Mohnhaupt]], [[Christian Klar]], and [[Susanne Albrecht]], the sister of Ponto's goddaughter.

Following the convictions, [[Hanns Martin Schleyer]], a former officer of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] who was then President of the German Employers' Association (and thus one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany), was [[Kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer|abducted 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.<ref>{{cite news |first=Patricia |last=Clough |title=Four die in kidnap of German industrialist |newspaper=The Times |date=6 September 1977}}</ref>

A letter was then received by the federal government, demanding the release of eleven detainees, including those in 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 [[Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)|Federal Criminal Police Office]] carried out its biggest investigation to date. Matters escalated when, on 13 October 1977, [[Lufthansa Flight 181]] from [[Palma de Mallorca]] to [[Frankfurt]] was [[Aircraft hijacking|hijacked]]. A group of four [[Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine|PFLP]] members took control of the plane (which was named ''Landshut''). The leader introduced himself to the passengers as "Captain Mahmud", and was later identified as {{ill|Zohair 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 via [[Larnaca]], then [[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 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 for [[Mogadishu]], [[Somali Democratic Republic|Somalia]].

A high-risk rescue operation was led by [[Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski]], then undersecretary in the chancellor's office, who had been secretly flown in from Bonn. At five past midnight [[Central European Time|CET]] on 18 October, the plane was stormed in a seven-minute assault by [[GSG 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.

=== "Stammheim Death Night" ===

[[File:Grabstätte Baader, Raspe, Ensslin.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.7|Burial site of Baader, Raspe and Ensslin]]
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|date=March 2023}} Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves with these weapons{{snd}}Baader in the back of his head<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aust |first1=Stefan |title=Baader-Meinhof |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=411 |url=https://thelul.org/library/stefan-aust-the-baader-meinhof-complex#toc164}}</ref>{{snd}} 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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Terhoeven |first=Petra |year=2013 |title=Deutscher Herbst in Europa: Der Linksterrorismus der siebziger Jahre als transnationales Phänomen |trans-title=The German Autumn in Europe: The leftwing terrorism of the 70s as a transnational phenomenon |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3486855586 |language=de |pages=17–21}}</ref> Authorities claimed that the prisoners{{snd}}who had been held in isolation for weeks<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aust |first1=Stefan |title=Baader-Meinhof |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=346–347 |url=https://thelul.org/library/stefan-aust-the-baader-meinhof-complex#toc145}}</ref>{{snd}}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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Aust |first1=Stefan |title=Baader-Meinhof |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=426–432 |url=https://thelul.org/library/stefan-aust-the-baader-meinhof-complex#toc168}}</ref>

The coordinated attempt sparked numerous [[conspiracy theories]]. It was alleged that the RAF members did not kill themselves, but instead were killed by the German authorities, the [[Federal Intelligence Service|BND]], [[CIA]], the United States and [[NATO]]. 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.{{sfn|Terhoeven|2013|pp=17–21}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Kraushaar |first=Wolfgang |author-link=Wolfgang Kraushaar |year=2006 |volume=I |title=Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus |trans-title=The RAF and leftwing terrorism |publisher=HIS |isbn=978-3-936 096-65-1 |language=de |page=53}}</ref>

On the very same day, [[Hanns Martin Schleyer|Hanns-Martin Schleyer]] was shot to death by his captors en route to [[Mulhouse]], 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 green [[Audi 100]] on Rue [[Charles Péguy]]. The French newspaper {{lang|fr|[[Libération]]}} received a letter declaring:
{{blockquote|After 43 days we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence{{nbsp}}... His death is meaningless to our pain and our rage{{nbsp}}... The struggle has only begun. Freedom through armed, anti-imperialist struggle.}}

== RAF since the 1990s ==
The [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] in late December 1991 was a serious blow to Leninist groups, but well into the 1990s attacks were still being committed under the name RAF. Among these were the killing of Ernst Zimmermann, CEO of [[MTU Aero Engines]], a German engineering company; another bombing at the [[United States Air Force|US Air Force's]] [[Rhein-Main Air Base]] (near [[Frankfurt]]), which targeted the base commander and killed two bystanders; a [[car bomb]] attack that killed [[Siemens]] executive [[Karl Heinz Beckurts|Karl-Heinz Beckurts]] and his driver; and the shooting of [[Gerold von Braunmühl]], a leading official at [[German Foreign Office|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 {{lang|de|[[Treuhand]]}} organization responsible for the privatization of the [[East Germany|East German]] state economy, was shot and killed. The assassins of Zimmermann, von Braunmühl, Herrhausen, and Rohwedder were never reliably identified.

After [[German reunification]] in 1990, it was confirmed that the [[Stasi]], the security and intelligence organization of [[East Germany]], had been monitoring the RAF, and in the 1980s had provided ten ex-members shelter and new identities.<ref>Jan-Hendrik Schulz: [https://www.zeitgeschichte-online.de/thema/die-beziehungen-zwischen-der-roten-armee-fraktion-raf-und-dem-ministerium-fuer ''Die Beziehungen zwischen der Roten Armee Fraktion (RAF) und dem Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS) in der DDR.''] In: ''Zeitgeschichte Online'', May 2007</ref> This was already generally suspected at the time.<ref name="Schmeidel">{{cite journal |last=Schmeidel |first=John |title=My Enemy's Enemy: Twenty Years of Co-operation between West Germany's Red Army Faction and the GDR Ministry for State Security |journal=Intelligence and National Security |volume=8 |issue=4 |date=October 1993 |pages=59–72| doi=10.1080/02684529308432225 }}</ref><ref name="Rohl">{{cite book | title=So macht Kommunismus Spaß |language=de |last=Röhl |first=Bettina | year=2007 |publisher=Europäische Verlagsanstalt | isbn=978-3-434-50600-3}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2021}} In 1978 part of the group was exfiltrated through [[Tito's Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] to [[Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa|communist Poland]] to avoid a manhunt in Germany. [[Brigitte Mohnhaupt]], Peter Boock, Rolf Wagner, and Sieglinde Hoffmann spent most of the year in facilities of the [[Ministry of Public Security (Poland)|Polish Ministry of Public Security]] in [[Masuria]], northeastern Poland, where they were also going through series of training programs along with others from Arab countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dziennikpolski24.pl/artykul/2690952,terrorysci-pod-ochrona-wywiadu-sb,id,t.html|title=Terroryści pod ochroną wywiadu SB Czytaj więcej|work=[[Dziennik Polski]]|date=15 December 2009|last=Knap |first=Włodzimierz|access-date=12 March 2016|archive-date=2 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002020557/http://www.dziennikpolski24.pl/artykul/2690952,terrorysci-pod-ochrona-wywiadu-sb,id,t.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

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 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 Deutsche Marks (over 50 million euros).

The last big action against the RAF took place on 27 June 1993. An agent of the [[Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution]] (the West German domestic intelligence agency) named [[Klaus Steinmetz]] had infiltrated the RAF. As a result, [[Birgit Hogefeld]] and [[Wolfgang Grams]] were arrested in [[Bad Kleinen]]. Grams and [[GSG 9]] officer [[Michael Newrzella]] died during the mission. 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.

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."<ref>{{Cite web |last=deutschlandfunk.de |title=RAF: Die geheimnisvolle dritte Generation |url=https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/raf-mysterium-dritte-generation-100.html |access-date=2024-03-05 |website=Deutschlandfunk |date=5 March 2024 |language=de}}</ref>

=== Dissolution ===
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:

{{blockquote|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.<ref name="rafinfo.de"/> ({{langx|de|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, former [[Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)|BKA]] President [[Horst Herold]] said, "With this statement the Red Army Faction has erected its own tombstone."<ref>{{cite book |first=John O.|last=Koehler |year=1999 |title=The Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police |page=449 |publisher=Westview Press}}</ref>

=== Legacy ===
[[Horst Mahler]], a founding RAF member, became a vocal [[Neo-Nazi]] and [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust denier]] later in life.<ref>Mahler, Horst (25 March 2001). [https://web.archive.org/web/20010602091156/http://www.regmeister.net:80/h_mahler.htm "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.</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550430,00.html |author=<!-- Staff writer(s); no by-line --> |title=German Sentenced to 10 Months for Hitler Greeting |date=29 April 2008 |magazine=[[Der Spiegel]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090210103754/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,550430,00.html |archive-date=10 February 2009 |agency=[[Deutsche Presse-Agentur]]}}</ref> In 2005, he was sentenced to six years in prison for [[Volksverhetzung|incitement to racial hatred]] against Jews.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.ejpress.org/article/12601 |work=European Jewish Press |title=Neo-Nazi Horst Mahler transferred to prison in Bavaria |date=29 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081201085655/http://www.ejpress.org/article/12601 |archive-date=1 December 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/16321/ |title=The Strange Case of Horst Mahler |first=William |last=Grim |date=9 June 2004
|work=The Jewish Press |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090309030637/http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/16321 |archive-date=9 March 2009 }}</ref> He is on record as saying {{lang|de|"Der Feind ist der Gleiche"}} ("The enemy is the same").<ref>''[[Frankfurter Rundschau]]'', 22 April 1999; ''[[Junge Welt]]'', February 1999</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2020}}

In 2007, amidst widespread media controversy, [[President of Germany|German president]] [[Horst Köhler]] considered pardoning RAF member [[Christian Klar]], who had filed a pardon application several years before. On 7 May 2007, pardon was denied; regular<ref group=lower-alpha>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.</ref> parole was later granted on 24 November 2008.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7745705.stm|title=Red Army Faction boss to be freed|access-date=11 February 2015 |publisher=[[BBC News]] |date=24 November 2008|archive-date=4 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150204193540/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7745705.stm|url-status=live}}</ref> RAF member [[Brigitte Mohnhaupt]] was granted release on five-year parole by a German court on 12 February 2007 and [[Eva Haule]] was released 17 August 2007.

In 2011, the last imprisoned RAF member, [[Birgit Hogefeld]], was released on parole.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/reststrafe-zur-bewaehrung-fruehere-raf-terroristin-hogefeld-kommt-auf-freien-fuss/4275864.html|title=Frühere RAF-Terroristin Hogefeld kommt auf freien Fuß|work=[[Der Tagesspiegel]]|language=de|access-date=23 April 2019|date=10 June 2011|archive-date=23 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423090607/https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/reststrafe-zur-bewaehrung-fruehere-raf-terroristin-hogefeld-kommt-auf-freien-fuss/4275864.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.ex-raf-terroristen-wo-sind-ernst-volker-staub-burkhard-garweg-und-daniela-klette.a0f0f850-0502-48f7-b766-a00f420e5d81.html | title=Ex-RAF-Terroristen: Trio wird im Ausland vermutet |language=de | access-date=30 July 2018 | archive-date=30 July 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730170620/https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.ex-raf-terroristen-wo-sind-ernst-volker-staub-burkhard-garweg-und-daniela-klette.a0f0f850-0502-48f7-b766-a00f420e5d81.html | url-status=live }}</ref> 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 in [[Wolfsburg]], [[Bremen]] and [[Cremlingen]] between 2011 and 2016.<ref>{{Cite web|url = https://nltimes.nl/2017/06/28/new-indications-german-leftist-terrorist-group-members-hiding-netherlands|title = New indications of German leftist terrorist group members hiding in Netherlands|date = 28 June 2017|access-date = 30 July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bka.de/DE/IhreSicherheit/Fahndungen/Personen/BekanntePersonen/RAF_Aktuell/Fahndungsplakat_RAF_aktuell.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308065628/https://www.bka.de/DE/IhreSicherheit/Fahndungen/Personen/BekanntePersonen/RAF_Aktuell/Fahndungsplakat_RAF_aktuell.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=8 March 2021|title=current wanted poster|publisher=BKA|access-date=10 September 2019|date=29 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35351477|title=German Red Army Faction radicals 'bungled armed robbery'|date=19 January 2016 |publisher=[[BBC News]] |language=en-GB|access-date=22 June 2018|archive-date=4 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180504030130/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35351477|url-status=live}}</ref> On 26 February 2024, Daniela Klette was arrested in Berlin; according to coverage in ''[[The Guardian]]'', Klette's arrest followed an investigative TV report about the missing trio, which sparked 250 independent tips to local police about their whereabouts.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Connolly |first1=Kate |title=Red Army Faction militant arrested in Germany after decades on run |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/red-army-faction-militant-arrested-decades-run-germany-daniela-klette |website=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=7 March 2024 |date=27 February 2024}}</ref>

According to scholarly research into Stasi documents, RAF members in East Germany were trained and assisted by personnel from the [[Stasi Arbeitsgruppe des Ministers S]].<ref name="Igel 2012 190ff"/>

== List of assaults attributed to the RAF ==
{{See also|Members of the Red Army Faction|List of Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof) assassinations}}
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
! Date
! Place
! Action
! Remarks
! Photo
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 22 October 1971 || [[Hamburg]]
| Police officer killed
| RAF members Irmgard Möller and Gerhard Müller attempted to rescue [[Margrit Schiller]] who was being arrested by the police for engaging in a shootout.<ref>[http://www.germanvideo.net/germanrafterroristfilm.html "The Crisis Years of the RAF / The Baader Meinhof Terrorist"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217160519/http://www.germanvideo.net/germanrafterroristfilm.html |date=17 February 2017 }} ''Terrosim in Germany. The RAF/Baader Meinhof Group'' {{sic}}.</ref> 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.<ref>Jeffrey Herf, [http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/JHerf/GHIterror4ms.pdf History.UMD.edu] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016145345/http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/JHerf/GHIterror4ms.pdf |date=16 October 2012 }}, "An Age of Murder: Ideology and Terror in Germany, 1969–1991", lecture at the German Historical Institute in Washington, 27 September 2007.</ref>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 22 December 1971 || [[Kaiserslautern]]
| 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.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 11 May 1972 || [[Frankfurt am Main]]
| Bombing of US Army V Corps headquarters and the officers' mess' Terrace Club<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/idrec/sn/edb/id/207-034 |title=Anschlag der Rote Armee Fraktion auf das Frankfurter Hauptquartier der US-Armee, 11. Mai 1972 |website=Zeitgeschichte in Hessen |publisher=Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen |access-date=26 March 2015 |language=de |trans-title=assault on the headquarters of the US army in Frankfurt by the Red Army Faction |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402114835/http://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/idrec/sn/edb/id/207-034 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| US Army LTC [[Paul A. Bloomquist]] killed,
13 wounded
| [[File:Terrace Club Frankfurt Germany 1972 V. Corps.png|150px]]
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 12 May 1972 || [[Augsburg]] and [[Munich]]
| 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.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 16 May 1972 || [[Karlsruhe]]
| Bombing of the car of the Federal Judge Buddenberg
| His wife Gerta was driving the car and was wounded. Claimed by the [[Manfred Grashof]] commando.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 19 May 1972 || [[Hamburg]]
| Bombing of the [[Axel Springer Verlag]]. The building was not evacuated even though warnings about the bombing were made by the RAF.
| 17 wounded. [[Ilse Stachowiak]] was involved in the bombing.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 24 May 1972 18:10CET|| [[Heidelberg]]
| 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 [[United States Army Europe|USAREUR]]) at [[Campbell 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 and [[Captain (U.S. Army)|Captain]] Clyde R. Bonner), 5 wounded. Claimed by 15 July Commando (in honour of [[Petra Schelm]]). Executed by [[Irmgard Moeller]].
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 24 April 1975 || Stockholm, Sweden
| [[West German embassy siege]], murder of Andreas von Mirbach and Dr. Heinz Hillegaart
| 4 dead, of whom 2 were RAF members.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
|7 May 1976 || [[Dreieich|Sprendlingen]] near [[Offenbach am Main|Offenbach]]
|Police officer killed
|22-year-old Fritz Sippel<ref>{{cite web|url=http://labourhistory.net/raf/other.php|title=Rote Armee Fraktion|access-date=11 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202214356/http://labourhistory.net/raf/other.php|archive-date=2 February 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> was shot in the head when checking an RAF member's identity papers.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 4 January 1977 || [[Giessen]]
| 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.<ref>Michael Krepon, Ziad Haider & Charles Thornton, [http://www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/ESCCONTROLCHAPTER6.pdf "Are Tactical Nuclear Weapons Needed in South Asia?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325125216/http://www.stimson.org/southasia/pdf/ESCCONTROLCHAPTER6.pdf |date=25 March 2009 }}, in Michael Krepon, Rodney W. Jones, and Ziad Haider (eds.), ''Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia'', Stimson Publications, 2004.</ref> A diversionary bomb attack on a fuel tank failed to fully ignite the fuel.<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Cockburn | first1 = Andrew | last2 = Cockburn | first2 = Leslie | title = One Point Safe | place = New York | publisher = Doubleday | year = 1997 | isbn = 978-0-385-48560-9 | url = https://archive.org/details/onepointsafe00cock_0 }}.</ref><ref>Barry L. Rothberg, "Averting Armageddon: Preventing Nuclear Terrorism in the United States", ''[[Duke University School of Law|Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law]]'', 1997, pp. 79–134.</ref>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 7 April 1977 || [[Karlsruhe]]
| Assassination of the federal prosecutor-general [[Siegfried Buback]]
| 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 member [[Peter-Jürgen Boock]] surfaced in media reports.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 30 July 1977 || [[Oberursel]] ([[Taunus]])
| Killing of [[Jürgen Ponto]]
| The director of [[Dresdner Bank]], [[Jürgen Ponto]], is shot in his home during an attempted kidnapping. Ponto later dies from his injuries.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 5 September 1977
18 October 1977
| [[Cologne]] resp.
[[Mulhouse]], France
| [[Hanns Martin Schleyer]], chairman of the [[Confederation of German Employers' Associations|German Employers' Association]], is kidnapped and later shot
| 3 police-officers, Reinhold Brändle (41); Helmut Ulmer (24); Roland Pieler (20); and the driver Heinz Marcisz (41) are also killed during the kidnapping.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 22 September 1977
| [[Utrecht]], Netherlands
| Police officer killed
| Arie Kranenburg (46), Dutch policeman, shot and killed by RAF [[Knut Folkerts]] outside a bar.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| {{nowrap|24 September 1978}}
| A forest near [[Dortmund]]<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919863,00.html?iid=chix-sphere|title=Terrorists: Closing in on an Elusive Enemy|date=9 October 1978|magazine=Time|access-date=11 February 2015|archive-date=18 July 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718042615/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919863,00.html?iid=chix-sphere|url-status=dead}}</ref>
| Police officer killed
| 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)<ref name="History.UMD.edu">{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/JHerf/GHIterror4ms.pdf |title=History.UMD.edu |access-date=26 March 2008 |archive-date=16 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016145345/http://www.history.umd.edu/Faculty/JHerf/GHIterror4ms.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> was shot dead, and one of the RAF members (Knoll) was wounded so badly that he later died from his injuries.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://labourhistory.net/raf/chronology-de.php|title=Rote Armee Fraktion|access-date=11 February 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203011343/http://labourhistory.net/raf/chronology-de.php|archive-date=3 December 2013}}</ref>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 1 November 1978 || [[Kerkrade]], Netherlands<ref>{{cite web|url=http://labourhistory.net/raf/chronology.php|title=Rote Armee Fraktion|access-date=11 February 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131205050232/http://labourhistory.net/raf/chronology.php|archive-date=5 December 2013}}</ref>
| Gun battle with four Dutch [[customs|custom officials]]
| 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 members [[Adelheid Schulz]] and [[Rolf Heissler]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.raf-geschichte-der-rote-armee-fraktion.de/Chronologie-der-Rote-Armee-Fraktion.asp|title=RAF – Die Geschichte der Rote Armee Fraktion|author=Jürgen Köning|access-date=11 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170626123239/http://www.raf-geschichte-der-rote-armee-fraktion.de/Chronologie-der-Rote-Armee-Fraktion.asp|archive-date=26 June 2017|url-status=dead}}</ref> who were trying to cross the Dutch border illegally.<ref name="History.UMD.edu" />
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 25 June 1979
| [[Mons, Belgium|Mons]], Belgium
| [[Alexander Haig]], [[Supreme Allied Commander]] 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.<ref name="haig">{{Cite news
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/25/world/german-guilty-in-79-attack-at-nato-on-alexander-haig.html
|title=German Guilty in '79 Attack at NATO on Alexander Haig
|date=25 November 1993
|issue=49526
|volume=143
|newspaper=The New York Times
|access-date=18 February 2017
|archive-date=3 May 2018
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503010610/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/25/world/german-guilty-in-79-attack-at-nato-on-alexander-haig.html
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In 1993 a German Court sentenced [[Rolf Clemens Wagner]], a former RAF member, to life imprisonment for the assassination attempt.<ref name="haig"/>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 31 August 1981
| [[Rhineland-Palatinate|Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany]]
| 
| Large car-bomb exploded in the HQ USAFE and HQ 4th ATAF parking lot of [[Ramstein Air Base]]
|[[File:RAF-Bombenanschlag in Ramstein, 1981.jpg|220x220px]]
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 15 September 1981
| [[Heidelberg]]
| 
| 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.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
|2 July 1982
| [[Nuremberg]]
| 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|date=June 2015}}
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 18 December 1984
| [[Oberammergau]], West Germany
| 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.<ref>{{cite news |title=German Terrorists Raid U.S. Consul's Home |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/04/world/around-the-world-german-terrorists-raid-us-consul-s-home.html |work=The New York Times |agency=UPI |issue=46279 |volume=134|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210100324/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E2DC1F38F937A35752C0A963948260 |archive-date=10 December 2008|date=4 January 1985}}</ref>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 1 February 1985 || [[Gauting]]
| Shooting
| Ernst Zimmerman, head of the [[MTU Aero Engines|MTU]] is shot in the head in his home. Zimmermann died twelve hours later. The assassination was claimed by the [[Patsy O'Hara]] Commando.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 8 August 1985 || [[Rhein-Main Air Base]] (near [[Frankfurt]])
| [[Rhein-Main Air Base bombing]]: A [[Volkswagen Passat]] exploded in the parking lot across from the base commander's building
| 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.<ref name="rheinmain">[https://www.stripes.com/rhein-main-car-bomb-kills-2-more-than-20-injured-in-blast-1.462094 Rhein-Main car bomb kills 2; more than 20 injured in blast.] Stars and Stripes European Edition, August 9, 1985</ref> 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 organization [[Action Directe (armed group)|Action Directe]] is suspected to have collaborated with the RAF on this attack. [[Birgit Hogefeld]] and [[Eva Haule]] have been convicted for their involvement in this event.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 9 July 1986 || [[Straßlach]] (near [[Munich]])
|
| Shooting of Siemens manager [[Karl Heinz Beckurts]] and driver Eckhard Groppler
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 10 October 1986 || [[Bonn]]
| Killing of [[Gerold Braunmühl]]
| The senior diplomat of the German Foreign Office was shot by two people in front of his residence on Buchholzstraße.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 30 November 1989 || [[Bad Homburg vor der Höhe]]
| Bombing of the car carrying the chairman of Deutsche Bank [[Alfred 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 the [[Stasi]], 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.
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 13 February 1991 || Bonn
| [[1991 United States embassy sniper attack|Sniper attack on U.S. embassy]]
| Three Red Army Faction members fired a G1 automatic rifle from across the [[Rhine]] River at the U.S. Embassy Chancery. No one was hurt.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.army.mil/terrorism/1999-1990/index.html |title=Timeline of Terrorism|publisher=US Army |access-date=18 April 2012 |archive-date=30 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120430220936/http://www.army.mil/terrorism/1999-1990/index.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 1 April 1991 || [[Düsseldorf]]
| Assassination of [[Detlev Karsten Rohwedder]], at his house in Düsseldorf
|Rohwedder was the chief of the [[Treuhandanstalt]], the agency that privatized the former East German enterprises after the [[German reunification]].
|
|-  style="vertical-align:top;"
| 27 March 1993 || [[Weiterstadt]]
| [[Weiterstadt prison bombing]]: 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]] and a [[GSG 9]] squad; GSG9 officer [[Michael Newrzella]] was killed before Grams allegedly was shot, while [[Birgit Hogefeld]] was arrested. Damage totaling 123 million [[Deutsche Mark]]s (over 50 million [[euro]]s). The attack caused a four-year delay in the completion of the site that was planned to open in 1993.
|[[File:JVA Weiterstadt.jpg|150px]]
|}

== RAF Commandos ==
The following is a list of all known RAF Commando Units.<ref name="books.google.ie">{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=J.|last2=Moncourt|first2=Andre|title=The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles for the People|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tl_70h3jIFkC&pg=PA617|year=2009|publisher=PM Press|isbn=978-1-60486-179-2|page=617|access-date=21 February 2016|archive-date=6 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706221113/https://books.google.com/books?id=tl_70h3jIFkC&pg=PA617|url-status=live}}</ref> Most RAF units were named after deceased RAF members, while others were named after deceased members of international militant left-wing groups such as the [[Black Panthers]], [[Irish National Liberation Army]], and the [[Red Brigades]].

{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* 15 July Commando
* 2 June Commando
* [[Andreas Baader]] Commando
* Ciro Rizzato Commando
* [[George Jackson (Black Panther)|George Jackson]] Commando
* [[Gudrun Ensslin]] Commando
* [[Holger Meins]] Commando
* [[Ingrid Schubert]] Commando
* [[Jan-Carl Raspe]] Commando
* [[Antifascist Resistance Groups October First|José Manuel Sevillano]] Commando
* [[Katharina Hammerschmidt]] Commando
* [[Khaled Aker]] Commando
* Manfred Grashof Commando
* [[Margherita Cagol|Mara Cagol]] Commando
* [[Patsy O'Hara]] Commando
* Petra Schelm Commando
* [[Siegfried Hausner]] Commando
* Sigurd Debus Commando
* Thomas Weissbecker Commando
* Ulrich Wessel Commando
* [[Ulrike Meinhof]] Commando
* Vincenzo Spano Commando
* Wolfgang Beer Commando
{{div col end}}

==In popular culture==
=== Films ===
Numerous West German film and TV productions have been made about the RAF. These include Klaus Lemke's telefeature ''{{ill|The Arsonists (1969 film)|de|Brandstifter (1969)|lt=Brandstifter}}'' (''The Arsonists'', 1969); [[Volker Schloendorff]] and [[Margarethe von Trotta]]'s co-directed ''[[The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (film)|The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum]]'' (a 1975 adaptation of [[Heinrich Böll]]'s novel ''[[Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum]]''); ''[[Germany in Autumn]]'' (1978), co-directed by 11 directors, including [[Alexander Kluge]], Volker Schloendorff, [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]], and [[Edgar Reitz]]; Fassbinder's ''[[The Third Generation (1979 film)|Die dritte Generation]]'' (''The Third Generation'', 1979); [[Margarethe von Trotta]]'s ''[[Marianne and Juliane|Die bleierne Zeit]]'' (''The German Sisters''/''Marianne and Juliane'', 1981); and [[Reinhard Hauff]]'s ''[[Stammheim (film)|Stammheim]]'' (1986). Post-reunification German films include [[Christian Petzold (director)|Christian Petzold]]'s ''[[The State I Am In (film)|Die innere Sicherheit]]'' (''The State I Am In'', 2000); [[Kristina Konrad]]'s ''Grosse Freiheit, Kleine Freiheit'' (''Greater Freedom, Lesser Freedom'', 2000); and Christopher Roth's ''Baader'' (2002).

[[Uli Edel]]'s 2008 ''[[The Baader Meinhof Complex]]'' (German: ''Der Baader Meinhof Komplex''), based on the bestselling book by [[Stefan Aust]], was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in both the [[81st Academy Awards]] and [[66th Golden Globe Awards]].

Outside Germany, films include Swiss director [[Markus Imhoof]]'s ''[[The Journey (1986 film)|Die Reise]]'' (''The Journey'') (1986). On TV, there was [[Heinrich Breloer]]'s ''{{ill|Death Game (1997 film)|de|3=Todesspiel|lt=Todesspiel}}'' (''Death Game'') (1997), a two-part docu-drama, and Volker Schloendorff's ''[[The Legend of Rita|Die Stille nach dem Schuss]]'' (''The Legend of Rita'') (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);<ref>[http://www.kino-germanfilm.de/?p=475 "''Der Baader Meinhof Komplex'' vs ''RAF Film Chronicle''"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719052252/http://www.kino-germanfilm.de/?p=475 |date=19 July 2011 }} by Ron Holloway, accessed 19 April 2009</ref> Klaus Stern's ''Andreas Baader – Der Staatsfeind'' (''Enemy of the State'') (2003); Ben Lewis's ''In Love With Terror'', for [[BBC Four]] (2003);<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/baader-meinhof.shtml BBC4 website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905213006/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/baader-meinhof.shtml |date=5 September 2011 }}, accessed 19 April 2009</ref> and ''Ulrike Meinhof – Wege in den Terror'' (''Ways into Terror'') (2006).

The 2010 feature documentary ''[[Children of the Revolution (2010 film)|Children of the Revolution]]'' tells Ulrike Meinhof's story from the perspective of her daughter, journalist and historian [[Bettina Röhl]], while [[Andres Veiel]]'s 2011 feature film ''[[If 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 documentary ''A German Youth'' on the Red Army Faction.<ref>{{Cite web|title = A German Youth brings the Red Army Faction to the Melbourne International Film Festival: review|url = https://theconversation.com/a-german-youth-brings-the-red-army-faction-to-the-melbourne-international-film-festival-review-45301|access-date = 12 September 2015|first = Dirk de|last = Bruyn| editor-first1=Paul | editor-first2=Bethany | editor-last1=Dalgarno | editor-last2=Patch | date=3 August 2015 | doi=10.64628/AA.nc9syneru |archive-date = 10 September 2015|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150910090211/https://theconversation.com/a-german-youth-brings-the-red-army-faction-to-the-melbourne-international-film-festival-review-45301|url-status = live}}</ref>

The [[Suspiria (2018 film)|2018 remake]] of ''[[Suspiria]]'' 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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/suspiria-a-german-history-primer.html |title=Suspiria: A German History Primer|date=30 October 2018|access-date=19 July 2020 |archive-date=13 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813181243/https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/suspiria-a-german-history-primer.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Fiction and art ===
{{more citations needed section|date=June 2020}}
* [[Heinrich Böll]]'s book ''[[The 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 French [[Experimental rock|experimental]] [[electronic rock]] band, released a fundraising single entitled ''Soutien à la RAF'' ''(support to the RAF'') with one track named ''Baader-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 (TV series)|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 (band)|Cabaret Voltaire]], the industrial band from Sheffield, England, recorded "Baader-Meinhof" that pondered the group's importance in history and their motivations.
* 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.
* [[Gerhard Richter]], a German painter whose series of works entitled ''[[18. Oktober 1977|18 October 1977]]'' (1988) repainted photographs of the Faction members and their deaths.
* In 1990, the album ''[[Slap!]]'' by the influential British [[anarcho-punk]] band [[Chumbawamba]] featured a song titled "Ulrike", about [[Ulrike Meinhof]] and the RAF.
*[[Tom Clancy]]'s 1991 novel ''[[The Sum of All Fears]]'' features the arrest of RAF members in former [[Eastern Bloc]] countries with the cooperation of the [[Demokratizatsiya (Soviet Union)|democratized Soviet Union]] at the [[Cold War (1985–1991)|end of the Cold War]] as a major plot point. In the book, embittered RAF terrorists ally with the [[Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine]] to procure a lost Israeli atomic bomb to start a [[Nuclear warfare|nuclear 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 novel {{lang|de|In 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 entitled ''Searching in Lost Space 1993''<ref>Series of paintings [https://www.artlist.cz/en/works/untitled-from-the-searching-in-lost-space-1993-series-103724/ Searching in Lost Space 1993] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191216115738/https://www.artlist.cz/en/works/untitled-from-the-searching-in-lost-space-1993-series-103724/ |date=16 December 2019 }} Josef Žáček's portraits of members of the Red Army Faction, 1993</ref> that were inspired by events that had occurred in 1993 in [[Bad Kleinen]].
* In 1996, British singer songwriter [[Luke Haines]] released a 9-track album titled ''[[Baader Meinhof (album)|Baader Meinhof]]''. In this concept album, all songs are a romanticized retelling of the RAF actions.
* [[Bruce LaBruce]]'s 2004 film ''[[The Raspberry Reich]]'' is an erotic satire of the RAF and of [[terrorist chic]].
* In 2003, [[The Long Winters]] released the song "Cinnamon", about the RAF.
* In 2004, Canadian singer–songwriter [[Neil Leyton]] composed and released a song entitled "[[Ingrid Schubert]]".
* Australian–British playwright [[Van Badham]]'s play ''Black Hands/Dead Section'' provides a fictionalized account of the actions and lives of key members of the RAF. It won the [[Queensland Premier's Literary Awards]] in 2005.
* The 2005 feature film ''[[See 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 2011 album ''Amok'' by German band [[Weena Morloch]] features the song {{lang|de|italic=no|"Die Nacht der Stumpfen Messer"}} ("The Night of Blunt Knives", a play on the [[Night of the Long Knives]]) which deals with [[Andreas Baader]]'s and [[Gudrun Ensslin]]'s death in prison.

=== Science ===
* The Red Army Faction is the inspiration and namesake for the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, also known as the [[frequency illusion]], a [[cognitive 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 the [[St. Paul Pioneer Press]] in which the writer described repeatedly noticing the name of the gang after mentioning it once.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1994-10-16 |title=Sunday Bulletin Board: 'I have dubbed it The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon' |url=https://www.twincities.com/1994/10/16/baader-meinhof-phenomenon-sunday-bulletin-board/ |access-date=2023-06-11 |website=Twin Cities |language=en-US}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Trial of Lina E.]]
* [[Revolutionary Cells (German group)]]
* [[Japanese Red Army]]
* [[Red triangle (badge)]]
* [[Reichstag fire]] ([[Marinus van der Lubbe]])
* [[Yonatan Netanyahu]]
{{end div col}}

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== Citations ==
{{reflist}}

== References ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Townshend |first=Charles |year=2002 |title=Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction |series=Very Short Introductions |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-280168-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Aust |first=Stefan |author-link=Stefan Aust |year=1987 |title=The Baader-Meinhof Group: The Inside Story of a Phenomenon |publisher=The Bodley Head |isbn=978-0-370-31031-2 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Aust |first=Stefan |author-link=Stefan Aust |year=2009 |title=Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. |translator-first=Anthea |translator-last=Bell |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=US |isbn=978-0-19-537275-5 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Baumann |first=Bommi |author-link=Bommi Baumann |year=1981 |title=How It All Began: Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerrilla |publisher=[[Arsenal Pulp Press]] |isbn=978-0-88978-045-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Becker |first=Jillian |author-link=Jillian Becker |year=1998 |title=Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang |publisher=Diane Publishing Company |isbn=978-0-7881-5472-0 |ref=none |title-link=Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang}} – also Panther edition 1978, {{ISBN|978-0-586-04665-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Blumenau |first=Bernhard |year=2014 |title=The United Nations and Terrorism. Germany, Multilateralism, and Antiterrorism Efforts in the 1970s |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |chapter=ch. 1. |isbn=978-1-137-39196-4 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Gerhardt |first=Christina |title=Screening the Red Army Faction: Historical and Cultural Memory |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-501-336690 |ref=none |url=https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/screening-the-red-army-faction-9781501336690/}}
* {{cite book |last=Hyams |first=Edward |title=Dictionary of Modern Revolution |publisher=A Lane |year=1973 |isbn=978-0-7139-0476-5 |ref=none |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofmode00hyam}}
* {{cite journal |date=5 June 1970 |url=https://www.berlin1969.com/stories-geschichte/troubled-times-unruhige-zeiten/founding-document |location=Berlin |title=Manifesto for Armed Action – Build Up the Red Army! |journal=883 Magazine |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Moncourt |first=Andre |year=2008 |title=Daring To Struggle, Failing To Win: The Red Army Factions 1977 Campaign Of Desperation |publisher=PM Press |isbn=978-1604860283 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |author=Red Army Faction |year=2005 |title=The Urban Guerilla Concept |publisher=Kersplebedeb Publishing |isbn=978-1-894946-16-2 |url=http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/71_04.html |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Röhl |first=Bettina |year=2007 |title=So macht Kommunismus Spass |publisher=Europäische Verlagsanstalt |isbn=978-3-434-50600-3 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=J. |editor2-last=Moncourt |editor2-first=André |year=2013 |title=The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History |volume=2: Dancing with Imperialism |publisher=PM Press |isbn=978-1604860306 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal |last=Usselmann |first=Rainer |url=http://www.rainerusselmann.net |title=18. Oktober 1977: Gerhard Richter's Work of Mourning and Its New Audience |journal=College Art Association, Art Journal |date=Spring 2002 |ref=none}} – Usselmann sees Richter's large cycle of gray paintings as a work of mourning.
* {{cite book |last=Varon |first=Jeremy |year=2004 |title=Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |isbn=978-0-520-24119-0 |ref=none}} – also {{ISBN|978-0520241190}}
* {{cite book |last=Vague |first=Tom |title=Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story |publisher=AK Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-1-873176-47-4 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Wright |first=Joanne |year=1991 |title=Terrorist Propaganda: The Red Army Faction and the Provisional IRA, 1968–86 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-04761-0 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |url=http://www.spunk.org/texts/groups/anm/sp000268.txt |title=A Herstory of the Revolutionary Cells and Rote Zora: Armed Resistance in West Germany |publisher=Autonomedia |location=Victoria, British Columbia, Canada |ref=none}}
{{refend}}

== Literature ==
=== Primary ===
==== English ====
*''Fundamental texts of the RAF'' (2023), trans. Camille Akmut.<ref>https://osf.io/preprints/osf/b4975 (uploaded 04/05/2023) ; https://osf.io/preprints/osf/jw3d8 (04/17/2023) ; https://osf.io/preprints/osf/rpqzh (04/20/2023). 26 p. [13+8+5]. . Archive : [https://web.archive.org/web/20241202073329/https://osf.io/b4975/download/ 1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20231021150443/https://osf.io/jw3d8/download 2] [https://web.archive.org/web/20231021102943/https://osf.io/rpqzh/download 3] ; [https://archive.today/20241212111219/https://osf.io/preprints/osf/b4975 i] [https://archive.today/20241212111545/https://osf.io/preprints/osf/jw3d8 ii] [https://archive.today/20241212115728/https://osf.io/preprints/osf/rpqzh iii] ; [https://web.archive.org/web/20241217231500/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Raf-fundamental-texts.pdf a] (compilation)</ref>

=== Secondary ===
==== English ====
* Leith Passmore (2011): ''Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction. Performing Terrorism.'' Palgrave Macmillan [https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230370777 Ulrike Meinhof and the Red Army Faction] 
* 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

==== German ====
* Willi Winkler: ''Die Geschichte der RAF.''(German) Rowohlt, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-87134-510-5
* [[Wolfgang Kraushaar]] (editor): ''Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus.'' (German) 2 books. Edition Hamburg, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-936096-65-1

== External links ==
{{Commons category|Red Army Faction}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/index.html Red Army Faction – Communiqués and Statements] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502151106/http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/index.html |date=2 May 2013 }} – an English-language collection of all communiques and statements by the RAF
* [http://www.socialhistoryportal.org/raf Red Army Faction – Communiqués, Statements, Chronology] – the most comprehensive collection of RAF statements and internal documents
* [http://www.berlin1969.com/stories-geschichte/troubled-times-unruhige-zeiten/founding-document/ "Build Up the Red Army"] English translation of 1970 founding manifesto from the Red Army Faction
* Patrick Donahue, [https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aOaJ4LQ21kwc&refer=germany "German Red Army Faction Victim's Son May Back Pardon"] by ''Bloomberg News''
* Denise Noe, [https://web.archive.org/web/20150213013003/http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/terrorists/meinhof/1.html "The Baader Meinhof Gang"], at ''Crime Library'' website
* [http://www.socialhistoryportal.org/raf/ Social History Portal (formerly Labour History Net)] a collection of original Red Army Faction statements and texts
* [http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/5144,news-comment,news-politics,red-army-fraktion-baader-meinhof-gang-murder-kidnap-torture-prison-release,3 Baader Meinhof, the First Celebrity Terrorists] – slideshow by ''[[The First Post]]''
* [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/25/germany/ Terrorist chic or debunking of a myth? Baader Meinhof film splits Germany]
* [http://www.thenation.com/article/heroic-impatience/ Heroic Impatience] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150820170110/http://www.thenation.com/article/heroic-impatience/ |date=20 August 2015 }} By Diego Gambetta, ''[[The Nation]]'', 4 March 2010
* [https://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00416/weiterstadt_DW_Poli_416514p.jpg Weiterstadt Prison Germany (after attack 1993)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304041334/http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/00416/weiterstadt_DW_Poli_416514p.jpg |date=4 March 2016 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130925062946/http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/1977excerpts/4.html Questions on the Stammheim ''Death Night'']
* [http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/8pk18x The Stammheim Deaths]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131016151335/http://www.onlinepublishingcompany.info/content/read_more/complexInfobox/site_news/infobox/elements/template/default/active_id/2511 Giovanni Di Stefano about the death night]
* Ryan, Mike: "The Stammheim Model – Judicial Counter-Insurgency", published in ''New Studies on the Left'', Vol. XIV, Nos. 1 & 2 (1989), available on [https://web.archive.org/web/20140903081055/http://germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/stammheim.html germanguerilla.com]
* [https://theconversation.com/a-german-youth-brings-the-red-army-faction-to-the-melbourne-international-film-festival-review-45301 Review of "A German Youth]", a found footage film about the Red Army Faction

{{Members of the Red Army Faction}}
{{Terrorism in Germany}}
{{Cold War}}
{{Portal bar|1980s|1990s|Biography|Communism|Germany}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Crimes against police officers in Germany]]
[[Category:Red Army Faction| ]]
[[Category:1970 establishments in West Germany]]
[[Category:1998 disestablishments in Germany]]
[[Category:Anti-fascist organisations in Germany]]
[[Category:Anti-imperialist organizations]]
[[Category:Communist terrorism]]
[[Category:Defunct communist militant groups]]
[[Category:Defunct organizations designated as terrorist in Europe]]
[[Category:Außerparlamentarische Opposition]]
[[Category:Left-wing militant groups in Germany]]
[[Category:Maoist organisations in Germany]]
[[Category:Organizations disestablished in 1998]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1970]]
[[Category:Terrorism in Germany]]
[[Category:Third-Worldism]]