Ulrike Meinhof
Wanted: Ulrike Meinhof
What is the Red Army Faction (RAF)?
View a short introductory video to familiarize yourself with the terror of the RAF using:
Source: http://www.baader-meinhof.com/
The RAF originally was a radical socialist and revolutionary terrorist
group following the “Frankfurt school” of Neomarxism
and referring to Marxist-Leninist theories with a slight Maoist tendency
that followed their own radically revolutionary and extreme leftist
theory developed by Ulrike Meinhof, who has been characterized as
the brain of the group. The RAF set out to become an urban guerilla
force that incorporated elements of groups they admired in other
countries such as the Black Panthers of the United States, the Palestinian
groups, and the Tupamaro guerillas of Latin America.
The RAF was filled with hate for the system, specifically the German
state, opposing the fascistic tendencies in the West European societies
and the National Socialist German past. .
The RAF was founded in 1970 with the liberation of Andreas Baader,
operated from the underground, and was centered on Andreas Baader,
Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. They followed the
belief advocated by South American resistance fighters, specifically
that of the Tupamaros in Uruguay, of fighting as communist “urban
guerillas” against the “system,” the ruling capitalist
state and the US Imperialism, from the underground. Meinhof claimed
that the action of the urban guerilla was never directed against the
people but instead against the imperialist apparatus i.e. they were
trying to fight the state terror. The urban guerilla concept aims to
destroy certain key points of the state apparatus, to temporarily render
them non-functional, and to destroy the myth of the omnipresence of
the system and its infallibility.
The first generation of the RAF to which Ulrike Meinhof belonged, grew out of the military wing of the APO (Ausserparlamentarischen Opposition, Non-parliamentary Opposition). After discussions by the student movement about state brutality and the use of violence against things (Gewalt gegen Sachen), Baader and Ensslin along with Thorwald Proll and Horst Söhnlein, set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt: “Kaufhaus Schneider” and “Kaufhof” to protest against the US war in Vietnam and the disinterest of the Western population. On the 14th of October 1968, the process against Baader and Ensslin began and two weeks later the verdict was stated: 3 years in prison.
On June 15th 1972, Meinhof and other RAF members were imprisoned.
Between 1973 and 1975, the Baader-Meinhof Gang went on three coordinated
hunger strikes to improve their prison conditions and to protest against
their solitary confinement in isolation in the dead corridor. On the
29th of November, Meinhof was sentenced to eight years in prison because
of helping in the Baader-liberation. The Stammheim trial of Baader,
Ensslin, Meinhof, and Raspe began in May 1975.
On May 9th 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was found dead hanged in her cell.
The suicide by Meinhof was later doubted by an International Investigatory
Commission and it was postulated that the state had commissioned her
execution.
On the 16th of May 1976, Ulrike Meinhof was buried in Berlin on a
protestant cemetery albeit protests that wanted to deny the top-terrorist
burial on a cemetery with religious affiliation
.
On the 28th of April 1977, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl
Raspe were convicted of several murders, further attempted murders,
and of forming a terrorist organization, the RAF. They were sentenced
to life imprisonment.
In the night from the 17th to the 18th of October 1977, Baader, Raspe,
and Ensslin imprisoned in Stammheim collectively committed suicide.
On the 20th of April 1998, the RAF proclaimed their self-dissolution
which was reported in a BBC article titled
German
Red Army Faction disbands.
Major crimes of the RAF within Meinhof’s lifetime
29th September 1970: bank robbery (DM 200,000)
15th January 1971: bank robbery (DM 110,000)
22nd December 1971: bank robbery (DM 135,000)
21st February 1972: bank robbery (DM 285,000)
11th May 1972: bombing of US barracks in Frankfurt am Main (1 dead,
13 wounded)
12th May 1982: bombing of police station in Augsburg and Criminal Investigations
Agency in Munich (5 police officers wounded)
19th May 1972: bombing of Axel Springer Verlag in Hamburg (17 wounded)
24th May 1972: car bombs in front of the US Army European Headquarters
(3 dead, 5 wounded)
27th February 1975: Taking CDU politician Peter Lorenz as a hostage
by the “Movement 2nd of June”
4th March 1975: Release of Peter Lorenz
25th April 1975: Occupation of German Embassy in Stockholm by the “Commando
Holger Meins” (3 dead, or 4 dead, 2 of which were terrorists)
The role of the media
The media played a crucial role in the success of terrorism in Germany. The constant flow of news about terrorist acts shaped the perception of the readership – politicians, citizens and terrorists alike. The media had the power to stir up fear of the RAF, to toy with emotions, and to give the Baader-Meinhof Group members a sense of their importance. Success in the hunt for the RAF was a question of political prestige for the government under SPD Chancellor, Willy Brandt.
Terrorism celebrated in Pop culture
The RAF still enthralls many artists nowadays. Various films glorify
the counter-culture of the RAF in the tradition of the generation of
1968, the terrorists often tend to hold the status of pop heroes. Painters
and sculptures, as well as authors, theater producers, and choreographers
feel inspired by the history of the Baader-Meinhof group.
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