The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a "fascist" state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term "faction" when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler. The West German government considered the RAF a terrorist organization.
GSG 9 der Bundespolizei, formerly Grenzschutzgruppe 9, is an elite special forces unit of the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) to combat terrorism and violent crime, including organized crime. In addition to its headquarters location in Sankt Augustin-Hangelar near Bonn, it has a second location in Berlin. Since 1 August 2017, it has been subordinate to the Federal Police Directorate 11. The state police (Landespolizei) maintain their own regional tactical units known as the Spezialeinsatzkommando (SEK).
The Japanese Red Army was a militant communist organization active from 1971 to 2001. It was designated a terrorist organization by Japan and the United States. The JRA was founded by Fusako Shigenobu and Tsuyoshi Okudaira in February 1971, and was most active in the 1970s and 1980s, operating mostly out of Lebanon with PFLP collaboration and funding from Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, as well as Syria and North Korea.
Irmgard Möller is a German former militant. She joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1971. After participating in two bombings she was arrested the following year. During the German Autumn of 1977, she was one of the prisoners demanded by the RAF to be freed and was part of an alleged suicide pact in Stammheim Prison with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe. The other three died and she survived, claiming it was an assassination attempt. She was released from prison in 1994.
Wolfgang Grams was a member of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a German far-left militant organisation from 1970 to 1998. Grams' death, officially while resisting arrest, caused a major political scandal and the circumstances continue to be debated.
Brigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt is a German convicted former terrorist associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF) members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK). From 1971 until 1982 she was active within the RAF.
Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was a German manager and politician, as member of the Social Democratic Party. He was named president of the Treuhandanstalt, the agency responsible for the reprivatization/privatization of all state-owned property in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), in September 1990, and served until his assassination by a Far Left terrorist organization, the Red Army Faction, in April 1991. He had also been CEO of the steel manufacturer Hoesch AG since 1980.
Sieglinde Hofmann was a German militant and member of both the Socialist Patients' Collective and the Red Army Faction.
The West German Embassy siege in Stockholm, Sweden, was a hostage standoff initiated by the Red Army Faction (RAF) on 24 April 1975. Collectively, the attackers referred to themselves as Kommando Holger Meins, after Holger Meins, an RAF member who had died of starvation during a (collective) hunger strike in Wittlich Prison on 9 November 1974.
Petra Schelm was a German founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She trained as an urban guerilla in Jordan and was killed in a shootout with the police in Hamburg in July 1971.
Birgit Hogefeld is a former member of the West German Red Army Faction (RAF).
Rolf Clemens Wagner was a member of the left wing terrorist organisation Red Army Faction (RAF).
Horst Mahler is a German former lawyer and political activist. He once was a far-left militant and a founding member of the Red Army Faction who later became a Maoist, before switching to neo-Nazism. Between 2000 and 2003, he was a member of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany. Since 2003, he has repeatedly been convicted of Volksverhetzung and Holocaust denial, and he served much of a twelve-year prison sentence.
Peter-Jürgen Boock is a German former terrorist of the Red Army Faction.
Ernst-Volker Staub is a German fugitive associated with the third generation Red Army Faction (RAF). Arrested in 1984, Staub was convicted of membership in a terrorist organization in 1986 and sentenced to 4 years in prison. Following his release in 1990, Staub went into hiding. He is wanted by the German police on suspicion of having rejoined the RAF and having been involved in further RAF activities since then.
Daniela Marie Luise Klette is a German left-wing militant. She is a suspected former German terrorist associated with the third generation Red Army Faction (RAF). She went underground in the 1990s and was arrested in February 2024.
Edward F. Pimental was an American soldier of the United States Army who was murdered by the Red Army Faction in West Germany.
Querbeat are a German pop band formed in Bonn (Germany) in 2001. They tour mainly around Germany but they also perform at festivals across Europe, primarily in Austria, Switzerland, and Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
The Rhein-Main Air Base bombing was a terrorist car bomb attack against the American Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt am Main in West Germany on 8 August 1985. Two Americans were killed and more than 20 people were injured. The blast was powerful and caused debris and damage to the base including to 30 vehicles, trees and windows.
The Weiterstadt prison bombing occurred on 27 March 1993, when the Red Army Faction (RAF) Command Katharina Hammerschmidt bombed and destroyed a newly built prison in Weiterstadt, near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. It was the RAF's "last anticapitalist attack" before it dissolved. Nobody was harmed in the explosion of the empty prison. Estimates of damage varied widely. Perpetrators were linked 14 years later through DNA evidence in skimasks left behind. In February 2024 Daniela Klette, one of the 4 perpetrators was arrested.
