German Red Army Faction

A descendant of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the German Red Army Faction (RAF) perpetrated some of the most devastating terrorist attacks of the 1970s, and it remained a threat for more than 20 years.

The Baader-Meinhof Gang grew out of the German student movement of the 1960s. Many students believed that the West German government was fascist and corrupt, and they wanted to replace it with a Communist regime. The name “Red Army Faction” had been adopted by the members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang in honor of the Japanese Red Army soon after its formation; however, this self-designation was at first largely ignored by the press and the public. Many of the gang's leaders were arrested in the summer of 1972, including Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, but the group was by no means destroyed.

The German RAF took on a character different from that of Baader-Meinhof. Whereas Baader-Meinhof concentrated on bank robberies and bombings, the RAF concentrated on hijackings, kidnappings, and assassinations. While Baader-Meinhof was known for its fast-living communal lifestyle, the RAF was organized into separate isolated cells. However, many RAF attacks involved demands for both Baader-Meinhof and RAF prisoners to be released. During the 1970s, some members were involved with operations by other terrorists groups, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and individual terrorists, such as Carlos the Jackal (Illich Ramírez Sánchez).

The first major attack following the capture of the Baader-Meinhof leaders was the February 1975 kidnapping of the West German politician Peter Lorenz by RAF members calling themselves the 2 June Movement. Some experts view 2 June as a splinter group of the RAF. Lorenz was released in return for five RAF prisoners. RAF's next major attack, undertaken with the aid of the PFLP, was the June 27, 1976, hijacking of an Air France flight on its way from Tel Aviv to Paris. Diverting the plane to Entebbe, Uganda, the hijackers demanded $5 million and the release of 53 terrorists and RAF leaders. The crisis was ended by a daring military operation by Israeli counterterrorism forces, in which three hostages and one Israeli soldier were killed. The success of the operation made governments much less willing to negotiate with terrorists.

On September 5, 1977, the RAF kidnapped Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a right-wing German politician, once again demanding the release of RAF prisoners, and adding the demand that the prisoners be given free passage to the country of their choice. Negotiations dragged on for five weeks while the West German government tried to find a country willing to take them. On October 14, 1977, in an effort to spur the German government into action, the RAF hijacked a Lufthansa flight and diverted it to Kuwait; five days later, a raid by Grenzschutzgruppe 9, German anti-terrorist [Page 230]commandos, freed the hostages. As it became clear that the government was not going to meet the terrorists’ demands, several of the imprisoned Baader-Meinhof leaders committed suicide, while the RAF kidnappers killed Schleyer.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, several important RAF members were arrested or killed in gun battles with police. From December 1984 to October 1986, the group carried out a string of attacks on U.S. Army bases and NATO facilities in Germany; concurrently, the RAF engaged in an assassination campaign against German leaders in which eight people were killed and dozens were injured. RAF continued with sporadic bombings through the 1980s, but support began to peter out with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent reunification of Germany. During the 1990s, the group made few attacks, while several of its remaining leaders were arrested or turned themselves in. In 1998, the RAF officially announced it was disbanding.

...