Baader-Meinhof Gang

Andreas Baader and his girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, bombed a department store in Frankfurt, Germany, in April 1968. This followed many tumultuous years of leftist revolution among German citizens and students. Their motives were to overthrow the post–World War II democracy, which they deemed oppressive. After Baader and Ensslin had spent 2 years in prison for their bombing, a left-wing journalist named Ulrike Meinhof helped them to escape. The media began to call their terrorist organization the “Baader-Meinhof Gang.” Supporters of this leftist terrorist faction referred to themselves as the “Red Army Faction” (RAF). By 1972, most of the leaders had been captured. The RAF followers retaliated by kidnapping and killing nearly a dozen people in hopes of securing their leaders' release.

The effort failed, and the ...