The Red Army Faction (or RAF or Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang) was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist group based in Germany from 1970 to 1998.
History
Background
Born out of the revolts in the late 1960s that swept the world and an alienated movement of young students. The RAF drew inspiration from successful guerrilla groups in the third world, the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions as well as the Tupamaros and Palestinian guerrillas. It also drew ideological inspiration from anti-colonial writers like Ho Chi Minh and Frantz Fanon as well as the Frankfurt School (notably Habermas, Marcuse and Negt) and early Autonomism and Situationism.
Notably, the unique conditions of Germany helped shaped the RAF. Not only were many students becoming disillusioned with capitalism, alienation and imperialism. But also the presence of many former Nazis who went unpunished in high profile positions of power, Germany's support for the US Empire and Israel and the killing of left-wing student leader Rudi Dutschke by a right-winger. Not only this result in the RAF but a strong ecosystem of left-wing organisations such as Kommune 1, Kommune 2, Kommune 3, the Socialist Patients' Collective, the APO, Amon Düül the German Students Movement and Squatters. These ecosystems progressively declined due to frustration of a lack of change and infighting, with most developing into various anarchist and communist terrorist groups.
Timeline of Major Actions
- 1968: Future RAF members set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt to protest the Vietnam War.
- 1969: The RAF is officially formed, drawing inspiration from Che Guevara and the Tupamaros.
- 1970: The RAF frees Baader from prison and begins training in Palestine with the PFLP and PLO.
- 1971: The RAF attempts to free one of its members (Margrit Schiller) from arrest, killing a police officer in a shootout. This is the first murder attributed to the RAF.
- 1971: The RAF carries out a bank robbery and shoots a police officer during their escape.
- 1972: The RAF bombs US Army headquarters in Frankfurt, killing one American soldier.
- 1972: The RAF bombs a German police station housing a criminal investigations unit.
- 1972: The RAF bombs the car of a German judge that fails to kill him and his wife.
- 1972: The RAF bombs a newspaper office known for pro-Zionist views.
- 1972: The RAF bombs a US army officers club.
- 1972: The RAF bombs the West Berlin British Yacht Club in solidarity with the IRA.
- 1972: During the Munich Massacre, one of the demands of Black September (the attackers) is the release of RAF members from jail.
- 1975: The RAF captures the West German embassy in Sweden and takes hostages, leading to a siege that kills 2 RAF members and 2 Swedish police.
- 1976: Lone RAF member shoots a police officer in the head after checking his papers.
- 1977: The RAF fails to launch an attack on a US army base containing a nuclear weapon the RAF planned to destroy, given that their diversion (an on fire fuel truck) failed to ignite.
- 1977: The RAF assassinates Siegfried Buback, a former Nazi and Attorney-General of West Germany, alongside his driver and judicial officer Georg Wurster.
- 1977: The RAF shoots Jürgen Ponto, head of one of Germany's largest banks (Dresdner Bank) in a failed kidnapping attempt.
- 1977: The RAF kidnaps and kills Hanns Martin Schleyer, head of the German Employers' Association and a former member of the SS. He was kidnapped in an attack on his car that killed his driver and three police escorts.
- 1977: The RAF shoots a Dutch police officer outside a bar in Utretch, the Netherlands.
- 1977: The PLFP hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 was done to secure the release of RAF members, it failed.
- 1978: Three RAF members doing target practice in the forest shoot a police officer who attempted to confront them.
- 1978: The RAF kills two Dutch customs officials after attempting to cross the Netherlands-German border illegal.
- 1979: The RAF attempts to assassinate the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO with a landmine under his car.
- 1981: The RAF attempts to kill a US air force officer while he takes a bike ride but fails.
- 1981: The RAF places a large car bomb in the parking lot of a US airbase.
- 1981: The RAF attempts to assassinate a US NATO general with a rocket launcher that hits his car, he survives.
- 1982: The RAF launches an unsuccessful sniper attack on a US military site that contains nuclear weapons.
- 1984: The RAF fails to bomb a school for NATO officers with a car bomb that was discovered.
- 1985: The RAF shoots Ernst Zimmerman, head of a German aerospace company, in his home.
- 1985: The RAF and Action Directe organise a car bombing of a US air force base in Germany, killing two American soldiers.
- 1986: The RAF kills a senior manager of Siemens, a German car company, and his driver.
- 1986: The RAF assassinates the head of the German Foreign Office, Gerold Braunmühl, by shooting him at the front of his house.
- 1989: The RAF assassinates the head of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen, by a roadside explosive using lasers and powerful enough to penetrate a vehicle's specialised armour.
- 1991: The RAF fires 250 shots from sniper rifles into US Embassy in Bonn, Germany to stop the Gulf War. It kills no ones, only breaking some windows and leaving bullet holes in walls.
- 1991: The RAF assassinates Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, a German politician responsible for the privatisation of assets in East Germany.
- 1993: The RAF overpowers guards at a new constructed prison and plants several bombs, destroying much of the prison despite killing no one.
- 1993: German intelligence infiltrates the RAF and attempts to arrest two members at a train station, both are shot and one is killed and the RAF member commits suicide.
- 1998: The RAF faxes a message to Reuters indicating their disbanding.
- 2015: Former RAF members attempt to rob a security van carrying valuable items using submachine guns and another van to block it on the road but fail to open its doors.
Lessons for us
The RAF are yet another example of why and how terrorism (especially by the left) fails, and how we as leftists must do everything in our power to stop terrorism.
Notable Members
- Andreas Baader
- Ulrike Meinhof
- Gudrun Ensslin
- Jan-Carl Raspe
- Holger Meins
- Astrid Proll
- Ingrid Schubert
- Thomas Weissbecker
- Petra Schelm
- Irmgard Möller
- Christa Eckes
- Angela Luther
- Siegfried Hausner
- Brigitte Mohnhaupt
- Sieglinde Hofmann
- Klaus Jünschke
- Hanna-Elise Krabbe
- Friederike Krabbe
- Carmen Roll
- Lutz Taufer
- Elisabeth von Dyck
- Ulrich Wessel
- Bernhard Braun
- Ingrid Barabass
- Ingrid Siepmann
- Juliane Plambeck
- Rolf Heißler
- Rolf Pohle
- Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann
- Siegfried Haag
- Roland Mayer
- Günter Sonnenberg
- Uwe Folkerts
- Waltraud Boock
- Sigrid Sternebeck
- Silke Maier-Witt
- Volker Speitel
- Angelika Speitel
- Willi-Peter Stoll
- Monika Helbing
- Christof Wackernagel
- Hans-Peter Konieczny
- Johannes Thimme
- Ernst-Volker Staub
- Daniela Klette
- Burkhard Garweg