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66———Baader-Meinhof Gang

on hunger strikes and wrote pamphlets protesting In March 1968, Ensslin, her lover Baader, and two
prison conditions. After Holgar Meins died while on accomplices, Horst Söhnlein and Thorwald Proll,
a hunger strike, the gang became a cause célèbre for moved from protest to active violence, firebombing
leftists; philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre visited Baader in two Frankfurt department stores. Although property
prison. was damaged, no one was hurt. Quickly arrested and
Baader was convicted and sentenced to life impris- convicted in October 1968, the four were released
onment on April 28, 1977. On October 18, 1977, after it pending appeal. When the appeal was denied in
had become clear that the latest attempt to free them November, Baader, Ensslin, and Proll jumped bail and
had failed, Baader, Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Rasp com- fled to Switzerland.
mitted suicide in prison. Within a few months, they returned to Germany; in
April Baader was recaptured and imprisoned. On May
See also BAADER-MEINHOF GANG; GERMAN RED ARMY
15, 1970, six members of the group freed Baader in
FACTION; JAPANESE RED ARMY; ULRIKE MEINHOF
a daring jailbreak with the help of Meinhof. After
Further Reading Baader’s escape the group became known as the
Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Group). However, they
Aust, Stefan. The Baader-Meinhof Group. London: Bodley called themselves the RAF in imitation of the
Head, 1985. Japanese Red Army.
Becker, Jillian. Hitler’s Children. Philadelphia: J. B. Once Baader was freed, the group commenced
Lippincott, 1977.
Horchem, Hans Josef. West Germany’s Red Army terrorist activities in earnest, traveling to a Palestinian
Anarchists. Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1974. training camp in Lebanon for instruction in bomb
Huffman, Richard. This Is Baader-Meinhof: Germany making and other guerrilla skills. Returning to
in the Post-War Decade of Terror, 1968-77. http://www. Germany in August 1970 and in need of funds, they
baader-meinhof.com. began a series of bank robberies and began to attract
Proll, Astrid. Baader Meinhof, Pictures on the Run 67-77. new recruits. By then the group had become the target
Berlin and New York: Scalo, 1998. of a massive manhunt. Three police officers were
killed in a series of shootouts during 1971; several
gang members were also arrested. In May 1972, they
BAADER-MEINHOF GANG began a bombing campaign against German and
American targets, setting off six bombs that killed
aka Red Army Faction
four people and injured more than 40.
At the end of May, German police discovered the
This Communist group, which was named for gang’s bomb-making facility and staked it out. On
Andreas Baader and leftist journalist Ulrike Meinhof, June 1, Baader and two other men entered the build-
terrorized West Germany in the 1970s. The gang ing and, after a siege lasting several hours, were
(which called itself the Red Army Faction [RAF]) arrested. Over the next two weeks, lucky breaks led to
engaged in bombing campaigns and assassinations, the arrest of Ensslin, Meinhof, and another top gang
including attacks against U.S. Army bases. leader. With their leadership gone, the gang was seri-
The Baader-Meinhof Gang emerged from the ously incapacitated and the character of the organiza-
German student protest movement of the late 1960s. tion was greatly altered. Several attempts, all
Originally focused on university reform, the student unsuccessful, were made to free Meinhof, Baader, and
movement soon took on distinct leftist characteristics the others.
as it agitated against the Vietnam War and U.S. impe- The West German government, determined to both
rialism. Students were also highly critical of German deflect criticism and prevent further terrorist attacks
society’s reluctance to confront the Nazi past, with during the trials, built a special prison for the Baader-
those on the radical fringe contending that the West Meinhof prisoners, with an attached courtroom to be
German government was merely a continuation of used solely for their trial. Their trials were delayed for
that fascist state. The radical fringe supplied most of three years during the prison’s construction, during
the Baader-Meinhof Gang’s members, most promi- which they went on hunger strikes to protest their soli-
nently Gudrun Ensslin, a former graduate student and tary confinement (one died while on a hunger strike).
longtime activist. They became something of a leftist cause célèbre. On