1972 June 15, 1972 Hanover

Ulrike Meinhof and Gerhard Müller spent the past two days at the apartment of a teacher, who was a friend of one of Ulrike’s Schili connections. At first the teacher does not realize exactly who is sleeping under his roof, but he takes his suspicions to his girlfriend the next morning and then to the police. On 15 June, the police begin staking out the apartment. Müller leaves the apartment to go to use a phone booth. Police attempt to arrest him as he picks up the receiver. He pulls out his pistol, but is quickly wrestled to the ground. Later, much later, Müller will prove to be the most valuable catch of all of the Baader-Meinhof Gang; he will turn on his comrades and testify against all of them. For now, though, the police aren’t even sure who they have captured. Prior to his arrest no one had even suspected his involvement with the group.

Because the police have no fingerprints of Ulrike Meinhof available, they X-Ray her brain to prove her identity. The X-Ray shows a tell-tale metal clip left over from a 1962 operation to stem an engorged blood vessel.

After Müller’s capture the police go upstairs to the apartment. They knock on the door and Meinhof answers. They take her into custody immediately. She seems shocked, and begins to cry. Initially she does not struggle, but after a few minutes she begins screaming and fighting. By the time she is photographed by the press at the police station a few hours later, her face is completely swollen. To many who see her face in the paper the next day, Meinhof surely has been beaten by the police.

Though they are fairly certain that they have captured Meinhof, the police do not have definitive proof. They do not have fingerprints of Meinhof to compare against. One of the police officers finds a copy of Stern magazine in the hide-out apartment; in it is an article about Meinhof. Accompanying the article is a photograph of an X-Ray of Meinhof’s brain, taken after an operation in 1962 when Meinhof had a metal clip placed over an engorged blood vessel in her head. One of the officers suggests that they X-ray her head to see if the woman that they have captured has a clip in her head. After forcibly anesthetizing Meinhof, an X-ray is taken, revealing the tell-tale clip.