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German Autumn | |||||||
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Part of the Cold War era | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
West Germany | Red Army Faction Revolutionary Cells PFL of Palestine | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Helmut Schmidt H.-J. Wischnewski Ulrich Wegener | Andreas Baader † Gudrun Ensslin † Jan-Carl Raspe † Zohair Y. Akache † | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
7 dead, 4 injured |
The German Autumn ( ‹See Tfd› German : Deutscher Herbst) refers to the period and political atmosphere in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) during September and October 1977. This period was marked by a series of attacks by the Red Army Faction (RAF), a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the West German government. The German Autumn included the kidnapping and murder of German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, and the suicides of the imprisoned leading members of the first generation of the RAF. These events represented the final act of the RAF's so-called "Offensive 77". The German Autumn is considered one of the most serious crises in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The term "German Autumn" is derived from the 1978 film Deutschland im Herbst ( Germany in Autumn ), a collage of several documentaries by eleven directors of the "New German Cinema." The film critically examines the state's reaction to terrorism from different perspectives. [1]
In 1977, the activities of the so-called second generation of the RAF reached their peak. However, the events before September are generally not considered to be part of the German Autumn.
On 7 April 1977, the Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback, his driver Wolfgang Göbel, and the head of the Federal Prosecutor's Office's motor pool, Georg Wurster, were shot dead in their car by the RAF's "Ulrike Meinhof Commando" (Kommando Ulrike Meinhof) from a motorcycle in Karlsruhe.
On 30 July 1977, Jürgen Ponto, the spokesman for the board of Dresdner Bank AG, was murdered in a failed kidnapping attempt. RAF member Susanne Albrecht, who knew Ponto personally, visited him accompanied by Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar. Unaware of Albrecht's political radicalization, Ponto received her unsuspectingly at his private home on Oberhöchstadter Strasse in Oberursel. When Ponto resisted the kidnapping, Klar and Mohnhaupt shot him several times, fatally wounding him. The three then fled in the getaway car driven by Peter-Jürgen Boock, which was waiting in front of Pontos' villa. [2]
On 25 August 1977, an attack on the Federal Prosecutor's Office building in Karlsruhe failed.
On 5 September 1977, the President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA) and the Federation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, BDI), Hanns Martin Schleyer, was kidnapped in Cologne. His driver and three police officers were murdered. [3] The kidnappers demanded the release of eleven imprisoned RAF terrorists.
As the German government did not give in to the blackmail—unlike with the kidnapping of Peter Lorenz two years earlier—terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), allied with the Red Army Faction (RAF), tried to increase the pressure by hijacking the Lufthansa plane "Landshut" on 13 October 1977. After an odyssey through the Middle East and the murder of the pilot, Captain Jürgen Schumann, the plane landed at Mogadishu International Airport, the capital of Somalia. Here, the Landshut was stormed by the West German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9 on 18 October at around 00:05 Central European Time (CET). Later that morning, a special report on Deutschlandfunk announced that "all hostages have been freed. We do not yet know whether there were any dead or injured among them..." All 87 hostages were rescued, including four of the five crew members. Three of the hijackers were killed and one hijacker was seriously wounded. [4]
Shortly afterward, in the early morning hours of 18 October 1977, known as the "Night of death in Stammheim", RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, who were imprisoned in Stuttgart-Stammheim supermax prison, reportedly took their own lives. Irmgard Möller, who was also imprisoned there, survived an alleged suicide attempt, [5] sustaining multiple stab wounds to her chest. [6] The kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer was subsequently murdered by his captors. His body was found on the evening of 19 October in the trunk of a green Audi 100 GL, parked on a side street in Mulhouse, Alsace, France, close to the German and Swiss border.
During the German Autumn, West German political parties engaged in heated arguments. The opposition, comprising the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), suspected that the ruling social-liberal coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) under Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (SPD) was ideologically close to the terrorists. In response, the coalition accused the opposition of hysterical overreactions and of attempting to transform the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) into a police state. [7]
Despite these differences, at the beginning of the Schleyer kidnapping, Chancellor Schmidt convened the so-called Great Crisis Committee (Großer Krisenstab), which included members of all parliamentary groups in the West German Bundestag. Historian Wolfgang Kraushaar later described this period as an "undeclared state of emergency" (state of exception). One result of the cross-party consensus was the "Contact Ban Act" (Kontaktsperre) passed in the autumn of 1977, which allowed for a contact ban for prisoners, including discussions with lawyers. [8] SPD politician and lawyer Hubert Weber welcomed this act, stating that "The Federal Republic is not in a state of emergency," and thus it was wrong for the courts to strain the legal definition of an emergency. [9] Additionally, the Code of Criminal Procedure (Strafprozessordnung) was amended to limit defendants to appoint a maximum of three defense attorneys.
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.
Gudrun Ensslin was a German far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction.
Berndt Andreas Baader, was a West German communist and leader of the left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction (RAF) also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Group.
Irmgard Maria Elisabeth 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.
Hanns Martin Schleyer was a German business executive, employer and industry representative, and lobbyist. He served as president of two powerful commercial organizations: the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and the Federation of German Industries. Schleyer became a target for radical elements of the West German student movement in the 1970s due to his roles in these business organisations, his positions in labour disputes, his aggressive television appearances, his conservative anti-communist views, his prominence as a member of the Christian Democratic Union, and his past as an enthusiastic member of the Nazi student movement. During the Nazi era, Schleyer served as an SS officer and reached the rank of SS-Untersturmführer. Schleyer's kidnapping and murder by the Red Army Faction (RAF) during the so-called German Autumn was the climax of one of the most serious crises in the history of West Germany.
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.
Lufthansa Flight 181, a Boeing 737-230C jet airliner named Landshut, was hijacked on 13 October 1977 by four militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine while en route from Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to Frankfurt am Main, West Germany. The hijacking aimed to secure the release of eleven notorious Red Army Faction leaders held in West German prisons and two Palestinians held in Turkey. This event was part of the so-called German Autumn, intended to increase pressure on the West German government. The hijackers diverted the flight to several locations in a harrowing odyssey before ending in Mogadishu, Somalia, where the crisis concluded in the early morning hours of 18 October 1977 under the cover of darkness. The West German counter-terrorism unit GSG 9, with ground support from the Somali Armed Forces, stormed the aircraft, rescuing all 87 passengers and four crew members. Tragically, the captain of the flight was killed by the hijackers earlier in the ordeal.
Sieglinde Hofmann was a German militant and member of both the Socialist Patients' Collective and the Red Army Faction.
Ingrid Schubert was a West German militant and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She participated in the freeing of Andreas Baader from prison in May 1970 as well as several bank robberies before her arrest in October 1970. She was found dead in her cell in 1977.
Siegfried Hausner was a student member of the German Socialist Patients' Collective who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 1972 for terrorist related crimes. When he was released in 1974, like many other former members of the SPK, he joined the Red Army Faction.
Stuttgart Correctional Facility, also known as Stuttgart Prison or Stammheim Prison, is located in the Stuttgart district of Stammheim, the northernmost district of the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the largest of a total of 17 correctional facilities with 19 branches in the Baden-Württemberg state prison system. Stammheim Prison gained national media attention in the 1970s due to the trials against the Red Army Faction and the imprisonment of its leading members in the high-security wing. Designed as a maximum to supermax security facility, the prison was put into operation in September 1963 after four years of construction. Today, it covers an area of approximately 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft).
Christian Klar is a former leading member of the second generation Red Army Faction (RAF), active between the 1970s and 1980s. Imprisoned in 1982 in Bruchsal Prison, he was released on 19 December 2008, after serving over 26 years of his life sentence.
Rolf Clemens Wagner was a member of the left wing terrorist organisation Red Army Faction (RAF).
Stefan Wisniewski is a former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF).
The Baader Meinhof Complex is a 2008 German drama film directed by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust. It retells the story of the early years of the West German far-left terrorist organisation the Rote Armee Fraktion from 1967 to 1977.
Adelheid Schulz is a former member of the West German terrorist Red Army Faction.
Peter-Jürgen Boock is a German former terrorist of the Red Army Faction.
Knut Detlef Folkerts is a former member of the terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF).
The kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer marked the end of the left-wing terrorist attacks called German Autumn in 1977.
Mogadischu is a 2008 German made-for-TV thriller film chronicling the events surrounding the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1977. Directed by Roland Suso Richter, it was first shown on public broadcasting channel Das Erste on 30 November 2008.