RAF — Red Army Faction
Vesttysklands mest berygtede venstreradikale terrororganisation
Sagsdetaljer
Quick Facts
Founding and ideology
The Red Army Faction was founded in 1970 by Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and Horst Mahler in response to what they saw as the continuation of fascist structures in post-war West Germany. The group, widely referred to in the media as the Baader-Meinhof Group, regarded itself as an urban guerrilla organisation of the far left, fighting against capitalism, imperialism and what it described as American occupation.
The RAF's ideological foundation was a blend of Marxism-Leninism, Maoism and revolutionary theory inspired by liberation movements in the developing world. The group viewed violent insurrection as the only path to systemic change and saw itself as a vanguard that would awaken the German working class to revolution.
The first generation
The first generation of the RAF, led by Baader and Meinhof, carried out a series of bank robberies to finance their activities. In May 1972 the group conducted a campaign of five bombings within the space of a few days, targeting American military installations, police stations and the headquarters of the Axel Springer publishing house. The attack on the Springer building in Hamburg wounded 17 people, while bomb attacks on American bases killed four soldiers.
In June 1972 the majority of the first generation were arrested, including Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin. While imprisoned, they were held in solitary confinement conditions that drew international criticism and sparked debate about prisoners' human rights. Ulrike Meinhof was found hanged in her cell in 1976 in what was officially ruled a suicide, while Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe died under mysterious circumstances at Stammheim Prison in October 1977 in what became known as the "Todesnacht von Stammheim" — the death night of Stammheim.
The German Autumn of 1977
The RAF's second generation attempted to pressure the authorities into releasing the imprisoned members through an escalating campaign of violence. The crisis reached its peak in the autumn of 1977, known as the "German Autumn" (Deutscher Herbst), which became West Germany's most severe security crisis since the Second World War.
