1970 September 1970, Italy

Stefan Aust, former editor of konkret, former friend of Ulrike Meinhof, and future biographer of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, meets up with group member Peter Homann, who had been kicked out of the group in Jordan. Homann tells Aust of Meinhof’s two daughters, Bettina and Regine, who are secretly being cared for by two hippies at the foot of Mt. Etna. In Jordan, Homann overheard Meinhof agreeing to send the kids to Jordan to be raised as Palestinian terrorists; now he was soliciting Aust’s help in returning the kids to their father.

Aust rescues the kids, returns them to their father, and for a while becomes a marked man of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

Back in Berlin gang member Hans-Jürgen Bäcker recruits two motor mechanics, Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Eric Grusdat, into the periphery of the group. Mahler conceives of an audacious plan to rob four Berlin banks simultaneously.