7-3-1972 Paper Says MacLeod Was A British Spy (Stars and Stripes)
A United Press International, article appearing in Stars and Stripes, covering recent allegations that Ian MacLeod, a young Scottish businessman killed during a police raid into a suspected Baader-Meinhof hideout, was actually a spy working for the British Secret Service. PDF: 7-3-1972 Paper Says MacLeod Was A British Spy
11-23-1977 Arms Cache Found in Prison (NY Times)
Short article on discovery of arms within Stammheim one month after “death night”. PDF: 11-23-1977 Arms Cache Found in Prison (NY Times)
11-14-1977 Woman Terrorist Dies In Jail Cell (AP)
Report on the death of Ingrid Schubert. PDF: 11-14-1977 Woman Terrorist Dies In Jail Cell (AP)
11-14-1977 Latest Terrorist Death Confirmed As Suicide (AP)
Report on inquest after the suicide of Ingrid Schubert. PDF: 11-14-1977 Latest Terrorist Death Confirmed As Suicide (AP)
11-7-1977 West Germany Tightens Security Near Its Airports (NY Times)
PDF: 11-7-1977 West Germany Tightens Security Near Its Airports (NY Times)
11-3-1977 Three Guerrillas Hinted of Suicide (Reuters)
PDF: 11-3-1977 Three Guerrillas Hinted of Suicide (Reuters)
10-24-1977 We’ve Won! Terrorists Exulted Just Before They Died (AP)
PDF: 10-24-1977 We’ve Won! Terrorists Exulted Just Before They Died (AP)
10-24-1977 Violence Provokes Wide Debate in West German Society (NY Times)
PDF: 10-24-1977 Violence Provokes Wide Debate in West German Society (NY Times)
10-24-1977 Baader Told Lawyer We Will Be Bumped Off (UPI)
PDF: 10-24-1977 Baader Told Lawyer We Will Be Bumped Off (UPI)
10-21-1977 Red Army Guerrillas Waging German Battle (AP)
PDF: 10-21-1977 Red Army Guerrillas Waging German Battle (AP)
10-20-1977 Kidnapped German Business Leader is Found Slain (AP)
PDF: 10-20-1977 Kidnapped German Business Leader is Found Slain (AP)
11-14-1977 Another Guerilla Suicide in Prison (AP-Reuters)
Report on the suicide of Ingrid Schubert. PDF: 11-14-1977 Another Guerilla Suicide in Prison (AP-Reuters)
5-21-1975 German Bonnie, Clyde on Trial (AP)
Article on the eve of the Stammheim trial, still casting Baader and Meinhof as the “Bonnie and Clyde” of the RAF. PDF: 5-21-1975 German Bonnie, Clyde on Trial (AP)
6-8-1972 A Fourth Anarchist Seized By Germans (NY Times)
Piece on the arrest of Gudrun Ensslin, and one of the first mentions of her in English language press. PDF: 6-8-1972 A Fourth Anarchist Seized By Germans
9-22-1977 Women Terrorists Groups Flourish In Germany (AP)
This Associated Press article appeared in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal on September 25, 1977, just as West Germany was descending into the horror of the “German Autumn”. The article is a general news analysis detailing how German terror groups were so heavily populated by women. It’s almost a curio-timepiece: the conclusions are often so hyperbolic and [read all]
August 19, 1975, Stuttgart
The defendants are finally officially charged: Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe are jointly charged with four murders, 54 attempted murders and a single count of forming a criminal association.
Late November, 1974 Cologne & Stuttgart
Former student leader, “Red” Rudi Dutschke, visits Jan-Carl Raspe in Ossendorf prison. Dutschke’s young son, Hosea-Ché Dutschke (named after a biblical character and Ché Guevara), tags along. Raspe is transferred to Stammheim shortly thereafter. At Meinhof’s urging, Baader-Meinhof lawyer Klaus Croissant convinces famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre to visit Andreas Baader in prison. His chauffeur [read all]
October 2, 1974 Stuttgart
The five primary members of the gang, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Holger Meins, are indicted officially of dozens of crimes, including murder. Baader is transferred to join Ensslin in Stammheim (Meinhof is still on trial in Berlin). Holger Meins, whose physical health has been severely weakened by the hunger strike, [read all]
German Autumn
Deutscher Herbst “The German Autumn” was the name given to the 44 days in the fall of 1977 when all of Germany was gripped in a terrorist crisis. It began on September 5, when the industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer was kidnapped in Cologne by the Red Army Faction. For the next month and a half, his kidnappers attempted to secure the [read all]
Death Night
According to German authorities Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe all committed suicide in their Stammheim prison cells early on the morning of 18 October 1977. It is perhaps understandable that many Germans had trouble believing them. The Red Army Faction cell block had been described over the previous five years as the most [read all]
Marianne Herzog
Born in October of 1939, Marianne Herzog was the girlfriend of Jan-Carl Raspe, who joined the gang with him in the fall of 1970. Herzog was arrested in December of 1971.
Jan-Carl Raspe
Young Jan-Carl Raspe, born on July 24, 1944 and living in East Berlin, found himself on the west side of the Berlin Wall when the East Germans raised on the night of 12 August 1961. He decided to stay in the west, living with relatives. In 1967 he helped found Kommune II, an experimental Berlin [read all]
Ulrike Meinhof
Bom on October 7, 1934, Ulrike Meinhof’s parents both died early, leaving Ulrike and her sister Weinke in the care of Renate Riemack, a friend of their mother’s. Riemack was a devoted socialist, and a profound influence on Meinhof. Meinhof married Klaus Rainer Röhl, publisher of the left-wing student newspaper, konkret. After a few years [read all]
Spring, 1973 Essen
Gudrun Ensslin uses characters from Moby Dick as new code-names for the imprisoned members of the gang. Gudrun becomes “Smutje,” Baader “Ahab,” Holger Meins “Starbuck,” Jan-Carl Raspe “Carpenter,” Gerhard Müller “Queequeg,” and Horst Mahler “Bildad.” Gudrun dubs Meinhof “Teresa,” which was not a character from Moby Dick. Baader-Meinhof Biographer Stefan Aust later theorizes that Ensslin [read all]
February 9, 1973 Cologne
After eight months of total isolation in the “Dead Section” of Cologne’s Ossendorf prison, Ulrike Meinhof is finally moved to an area of the prison that is populated by other prisoners. The move is prompted by the hunger strikes that most of the Baader-Meinhof Gang members are waging. The hunger strikes are called off, and [read all]
June 1, Frankfurt am Main
Acting on a tip, police begin staking out a garage near Frankfurt. Peering inside, the police notice it is empty of people, but full of explosives. They empty the garage of bombs (replacing the explosives with empty containers), and install a listening device. City workers place hundreds of bags of peat and grass outside, as [read all]
May 15, 1972 Karlsruhe
Baader, Raspe, and Meins put a car bomb in the Volkswagen of Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, who had signed most of the Baader-Meinhof arrest warrants. Buddenberg’s wife, Gerta, is in the car when it explodes, severely injuring her. A communiqué is released claiming responsibility for the the bomb. It is signed, “The Manfred Grashof Commando.”
May 11, 1972 Frankfurt am Main
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Meins, and Jan-Carl Raspe place three pipe bombs near the entrance the the I.G. Farben building, which houses the headquarters of the US Army Corp. The bombs explode within minutes of each other from 6:59 PM to 7:02 PM. The entrance to the officer’s mess is destroyed. A shard of [read all]
Chapter 20 — The German Autumn
September 1977 – November 1977, 60 pages: The final chapter will provide a fitting climax to the story. It will primarily focus on the 44 days in the fall of 1997 that have become known as “The German Autumn.” In April of 1977 the longest and most expensive trial in German history is over. Andreas [read all]
Andreas Baader
Andreas Baader was one of the two namesakes of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. A juvenile delinquent, Baader was drawn towards the leftist student movement because of the excitement, and the potential for violence. He was convicted of the 1968 arson bombing of a Frankfurt department store, along with his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin. He escaped from police [read all]
Early October 1970, West Berlin
New recruits join the gang at a rapid clip. Jan-Carl Raspe and his girlfriend Marianne Herzog join, as does Ali Jansen.
Podcast 26: The Politics of Burying Terrorists
We compare how the US buried bin Laden with how the bodies of Ensslin, Raspe, and Baader were buried. [display_podcast]
Interview: Bob Berwyn, Witness to 1972 and 1976 Bombings
Bob Berwyn has the rare distinction to have witnessed two separate Red Army Faction Bombings as well as a deadly neo-Nazi bombing at the Munich Oktoberfest in 1980. On May 11, 1972, 15-year-old Bob Berwyn was watching a film at the US Army base’s theater when he heard an muffled explosion nearby. After a few [read all]
Interview: Scott Tatina, Bombing Witness
May 11, 1972. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Holger Meins and possibly others leave three pipe bombs around Frankfurt’s IG Farben building, which housed the Supreme Allied Command of the US military. In the early evening, the three bombs go off in rapid succession. One bomb, planted inside the main building, destroys a [read all]