Page 91 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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stores in April 1968. Arrested almost immediately,
BAADER, ANDREAS (1943–1977) they were convicted in October 1968.
Released pending appeal in June 1969, Baader and
Andreas Baader was one of the leaders of the two of his coconspirators jumped bail in November
Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army after their appeal was rejected and fled to Switzerland.
Faction, a West German Marxist group active during Within a few months, however, they were back in
the 1970s. Berlin, and in April 1970, Baader was recaptured and
Baader, whose father was killed on the Russian imprisoned. On May 15, his comrades, executing a
front in World War II, was born in Munich on May 3, daring escape plan, freed Baader at gunpoint. The jail-
1943; he was raised by his mother and grandmother. break became international news because of the
He was an unruly child who, though intelligent, did involvement of Ulrike Meinhof, a well-known leftist
poorly in school. As a teenager, he became obsessed journalist, and the group came to be referred to as the
with cars and was arrested several times for driving Baader-Meinhof Gang.
without a license. Once Baader was freed, the gang traveled to a
Baader spent most of his time hanging out in West Palestinian training camp in Lebanon for instruction
Berlin’s student bars and cafés. Handsome and charis- in bomb making and other guerrilla techniques.
matic, Baader was popular with women, though he Returning to Germany in August 1970, they began a
often treated them contemptuously, using derogatory series of bank robberies. Over the course of the next
terms in conversation. In 1967, he met and became the two years, the gang robbed dozens of banks; bombed
lover of Gudrun Ensslin. Though always rebellious two U.S. Army bases and several German targets,
and prone to violence, Baader was no intellectual and killing eight people; and engaged in a number of con-
seems to have had no coherent political ideology frontations with police in which several gang mem-
before meeting Ensslin. Several years older than bers were arrested and two police officers were killed.
Baader, Ensslin had long been a committed leftist On June 1, 1972, the authorities discovered one of the
and an activist. Baader’s relationship with her would gang’s bomb-making facilities. During a two-hour
prove enduring, and he came to share in her political standoff, the police arrested Baader, who resisted and
beliefs. was shot in the leg, and his two companions. Other top
As elsewhere in the late 1960s, student protest was gang leaders, including Meinhof and Ensslin, were
increasing in Germany. Students were highly critical arrested in the following weeks.
of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, as well as their own Their trial was put off for more than three years so
nation’s reluctance to address its Nazi history. Ensslin, that the German government could construct a special
Baader, and two friends decided to strike back at what terror-proof prison and courthouse in which to
they called the fascism of the West German state; they conduct it. The remnants of the gang made several
began with firebombing two Frankfurt department attempts to free their leaders, while the prisoners went

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