7-27-1972 German Draws 10 Year Term (Stars and Stripes)
A brief Associated Press article, appearing in Stars and Stripes, about the 10 year sentence given to Werner Hoppe. PDF: 7-27-1972 German Draws 10 Year Term
6-2-1972 Bonn Seizes Suspected Guerrillas (NY Times)
Article on the arrests of Baader and Meins as well as an outline of possible international links. PDF: 6-2-1972 Bonn Seizes Suspected Guerrillas (NY Times)
5-28-1972 Bonn gets warning of more bombings (Guardian UK)
A great and concise summary of events up to and including the Heidelberg bombing, including short biographies of Badder and Meinhoff. It also mentions both the Petra Schelm and Thomas Welsbecker Commando as well as Bonn’s plans to deal with the “inner enemy”. PDF: 5-28-1972 Bonn gets warning of more bombings
Petra Schelm
Born in August 1950, Petra Schelm, a Berlin hairdresser, traveled to the Jordan desert for guerrilla training after the freeing of Andreas Baader from police custody in May of 1970. Schelm had joined the group with her boyfriend Manfred Grashof. Schelm was killed in a shoot-out with Hamburg police. Her death caused shockwaves throughout Germany [read all]
Werner Hoppe
A member of the lumpenproletariat, and a former drug addict, Hoppe joined the group in 1971. Shortly after joining, Hoppe was arrested on 15 July 1971 during the police shootout where Petra Schelm was killed.
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]
July 15, 1971 Hamburg
RAF members Petra Schelm and Werner Hoppe are stopped at a police roadblock on a bridge in Hamburg. They are driving a stolen BMW 2002 ti (which was popularly called a “Baader-Meinhof Wagen”). They burst through the barricades and are chased by two police cars. The BMW slams to a halt as the police corner [read all]
Early March 1970, West Berlin
Baader and Ensslin meet up with Dieter Kunzelmann, whose West Berlin Tupamaros had been mildly terrorizing Berlin the previous year with humorous pranks, and potentially deadly bombs. Kunzelmann wants Baader and Ensslin to join his gang, but the talks break down when Baader suggests that he be the leader rather than Kunzelmann. Horst Mahler, the [read all]