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Operation Leo was a plan to kidnap the Swedish minister for immigration, Anna-Greta Leijon, in 1977. [1] The plan was devised by the second generation of the German Red Army Faction.[ further explanation needed ]
The first generation of the group was also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group, after two of its founding members.[ citation needed ]
The Red Army Faction devised the plan as a direct consequence of the outcome of the 1975 West German embassy siege in Stockholm.[ citation needed ] A group of RAF members seized the embassy by force, demanding negotiations with the West German government.[ citation needed ] After the Swedish and German governments had employed stalling tactics the terrorists became impatient and allegedly started planning a violent break-out.[ citation needed ] A botched attempt to create a diversion led to an explosion and a massive fire.[ citation needed ] One terrorist, Siegfried Hausner, died from injuries sustained in the explosion in Stammheim Prison after being flown to Germany. [2] The other members of the group were arrested as they tried to flee the premises.[ citation needed ]
If the plan to kidnap Leijon had been successful the group would have named their unit "Commando Siegfried Hausner".[ citation needed ]
Leijon was chosen because she held the highest political responsibility for the new Swedish anti-terrorist law, and the goal was to exchange Leijon for 8 'comrades' held in West German prisons.[ citation needed ] The group intended to put the minister in a wooden box so as to prevent her from hearing or seeing anything and subsequently moving her to another location. [3]
The plan was extensive and complicated and included robbing banks and procuring weapons. However, unbeknownst to the Red Army Faction, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) had them under close surveillance.[ citation needed ] Before the plan could be put into action the police arrested the entire group in an operation code-named "Ebba Röd".[ citation needed ]
During the investigation that followed, some 90 people were arrested. Many received prison terms, among them were: [4]
The leader of the group, Norbert Kröcher, was deported to Germany where he served out his prison sentence until released in 1989. After he was arrested, "Ebba Grön" was called out on the police radio. [5] (Röd is the Swedish word for red, and Grön is the word for green. Ebba was the police code-name for Kröcher.) [5] The Swedish punk band Ebba Grön, formed in 1977, named themselves after the code word used in the police operation. [5]
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.
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Norbert Erich Kröcher was a German terrorist and member of J2M. He was also strongly associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction. He was the husband of Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann.
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.
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Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann (1951–1995) was a German far-left militant, associated with the Movement 2 June (J2M) and the Red Army Faction. She married Norbert Kröcher in 1971 and later divorced him whilst she served a prison sentence. She was freed by the kidnapping of Peter Lorenz in 1975, then participated in the OPEC siege. In 1977, she was arrested in Switzerland after shooting two policemen. She was imprisoned until 1991 and died in 1995.
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