Red Army Faction

The Red Army Faction (in German: Rote Armee Fraktion; RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, or the Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was one of the core groups within the RAF, was postwar Western Germany's most active left-wing terrorist organization. The RAF referred to its members as "urban guerrillas". It operated from the 1970s to 1998, causing great unrest (especially in the autumn of 1977, which led to a national crisis) and killing dozens of high-profile Germans in its more than 20 years of existence.

Prelude

The origins of the group can be traced back to the student protests of the late 1960s. In Germany, the protests turned into riots when on June 2 1967, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, visited the western part of Berlin, at the time a divided city. After a day of violent protests by exiled Iranians, supported by German students, the Shah visited the Deutsche Oper. In the course of events after the show, the German student Benno Ohnesorg—who was attending his first protest—was shot in the head and killed by West German police.

Related Topics:
Student protest - 1960s - June 2 - 1967 - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - Shah - Iran - Berlin - Exile - Deutsche Oper - Benno Ohnesorg

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This, together with perceptions of state brutality during other protests (West German police tactics of the period are viewed in contemporary times as generally overly aggressive) and the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, brought Thorwald Proll, Horst Söhnlein, Gudrun Ensslin, and Andreas Baader together, after which they decided to set fire to several German department stores. They were arrested in Frankfurt on April 2, 1968; while they were on trial, the journalist Ulrike Meinhof published several sympathetic articles in the political magazine konkret.

Related Topics:
Vietnam War - Thorwald Proll - Horst Söhnlein - Gudrun Ensslin - Andreas Baader - Department store - Frankfurt - April 2 - 1968 - Ulrike Meinhof - Konkret

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, on April 11, 1968, Rudi Dutschke, the intellectual leader of the student protests, was shot in the head (though badly injured, he was able to return to political activism until his death in 1979, a late consequence of his injuries). The attacker was Josef Bachmann, a conservative, German unskilled laborer. The students considered the tabloid newspaper Bild-Zeitung, which had headlines like "Stop Dutschke now!", the chief culprit and thus the conservative press and especially the Axel Springer corporation, the publisher of the Bild-Zeitung, became the new target of the leftist protesters. 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."

Related Topics:
April 11 - 1968 - Rudi Dutschke - 1979 - Josef Bachmann - Bild-Zeitung - Axel Springer

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~