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Timeline

24 May 1967, Berlin - Two days after a devastating fire sweeps through a Brussels department store, members of Kommune I, a radical commune, pass out a leaflet at Berlin's Free University which jokingly suggests that a good way to bring the Marxist Revolution home is to deliberately burn down department stores. Kommune I members Fritz Teufel and Rainer Langhans were arrested and charged with inciting arson.

2 June 1967, Berlin - 2 June 1967, Berlin - Benno Ohnesorg lies dead on a Berlin street from a police bullet. --- The Shah of Iran pays an official visit to Berlin. Thousands of students take to the streets to protest the Shah's brutally repressive regime. Jubelperser (Cheering Persians) is a well-known expression in Germany, describing a group of Iranians who were hired to cheer in the crowd during the Shah’s visit in West Berlin during the year 1967. The Jubelperser escalated the situation by clubbing protesters under the eyes of the police. Students seem to be protesting every week--everything, from the war in Vietnam, to the Grand Coalition between the two major German political parties, to university policies, were used as excuses to march. It is all quite a lot of fun.-- As the people begin to disperse, the cops surprise them. The police utilize a new technique that they have developed for terrorizing crowds; they call it "The Liver-Sausage Method." Like a stuffed liver sausage, the crowd of demonstrators is stuffed long and tight on the sidewalk between the barricades and buildings. The cops form a wedge, and rush the middle of the "sausage." The demonstrators naturally rush sideways--the sausage exploding at its ends--and into the flailing truncheons of hundreds more waiting police. Pandemonium rules. At one point the police grab one protester whom they believe to be a ringleader. Detective Sgt. Karl-Heinz Kurras points his gun at the protester's head .. and shoots him dead. Protesters stream away from the scene, in shock that the protest had turned deadly. Many students head towards the office of the SDS (a prominent student organization) on the Ku-Damm; Ensslin is among them. Inside Ensslin screams: "This fascist state means to kill us all! We must organize resistance. Violence is the only way to answer violence. This is the Auschwitz Generation, and there's no arguing with them!" -- Noted journalist Ulrike Meinhof certainly enjoys attending the protests. She is the former editor of the leftist magazine konkret (founded and still published by her soon-to-be ex-husband Klaus Rainer Röhl) and she has recently begun appearing on television political panel shows. Though she has her spoons in many pots, she still writes a twice-monthly column for konkret. Prior to the Shah's arrival she wrote a biting critique in konkret of the out-of-touch nature of the Shah and his wife. But Meinhof can't make the 2 June Berlin protest; she is busy shopping for furniture for her new Hamburg home. A young troublemaker named Andreas Baader also misses the 2 June protest. He is cooling his heels in a Traunstein jail, serving time for stealing a motorcycle. A reed-thin some-time student, Gudrun Ensslin, is able to make the protest. She too has been a regular fixture at many of the Berlin protests; in the coming months she often will show up pushing her young baby son along in a stroller. For the Shah protest, fortunately, she leaves her two-week old baby Felix with her estranged husband, Bernward Vesper. In the early evening thousands of protesters begin lining up behind police barricades across the street from the Opera House where the Shah is about to attend a performance. A few protesters lob paint-filled balloons; but nothing comes close to the Shah, who slips into the Opera House without even noticing the protesters.

3 June 1967, Berlin - Gudrun Ensslin participates in a protest following the police shooting of a student the night before. A ban on all protest signs and banners is put in effect on the streets of Berlin. A student, Peter Homann, comes up with an ingenious prank to get around the ban; dress up eight people in tee-shirts, each with a single giant letter painted on the front and back. When lined up side-by-side the group's tee-shirts read A-L-B-E-R-T-Z-! -- referring to Berlin Mayor Heinrich Albertz -- and when the group turns around in unison, their backs read A-B-T-R-E-T-E-N -- which means "resign." Photos appear across West Germany the next day -- on the far left, with a giant exclamation point on her chest, is Ensslin. Despite Homann's ingenuity, all eight protesters are arrested.

Mid-Summer 1967 Berlin Baader meets Ensslin at a gathering. They fall in love immediately.

22 March 1968, Berlin - Fritz Teufel and Rainer Langhans are found Not Guilty of Incitement to Arson, for passing out the leaflets the previous spring. According to Baader-Meinhof biographer Jillian Becker, the expert witnesses agree, "the pamphlets were literary compositions, not to be acted on but for theoretical considerations only." Theoretical to everyone, it seems, except Andreas Baader and his new girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin.

2 April 1968 , Frankfurt am Main -- Baader and Ensslin head to Frankfurt am Main with two friends, Horst Söhnlein and Thorwald Proll. Baader has acquired quite a reputation as a "dangerous" sort by his constant calls for violent action. Invariably no one would choose to act on his "suggestions." Today is different. This time Baader's fellow comrades elect to take Baader up on his suggestion to burn down a department store. Later that night Baader and Ensslin leave two time bombs in the Kaufhaus Schneider department store. Söhnlein and Proll leave a bomb in the Kaufhof store. At midnight the bombs go off, ultimately causing about $200,000 worth of damage. While the first flames appear, Ensslin is on a pay phone, screaming at the German Press Agency, "This is a political act of revenge!"

4 April, Frankfurt 1968 - Unable to keep their deeds a secret, police arrest Baader and his comrades for the arsons.

11 April 1968 , Berlin - A young house painter, Joseph Bachmann, waits patiently in the street outside the home of Rudi Dutschke. Dutschke is the firebrand leader of the APO -- a leftist movement. In Bachmann's coat pocket is a gun. Bachmann approached Dutschke, whom he had never met, in the street, having found out his address from the Einwohnermeldeamt, the registration office. Asking him if he was really Rudi Dutschke, he took out a gun and shot him in the head. Later on he told the judge that he had done it out of hate, calling him a dirty Communist pig. After the shooting, Bachmann fled to a cellar where he took an overdose of sleeping pills but still continued firing his gun at police officers trying to approach him. He was taken to a hospital to deal with the effects of his overdose. Dutschke survived the assassination attempt but suffered brain damage and was forced to learn to speak again. He was left with severe health problems which in 1979 led to his death in Aarhus, Denmark. After Bachmann's conviction, he and Dutschke corresponded by letter. Bachmann committed suicide in prison on the night between February 23 and February 24, 1970. The reason Dutschke was targeted is because of the red-baiting rhetoric of the newspapers of the Springer Press (BildZeitung) newspapers. Owned by the rabidly anti-communist Lord Axel Springer, the Springer Press papers dominate Germany, constantly spewing anti-left diatribes, particularly against "red" Rudi Dutschke. -- Same evening Ulrike Meinhof is arrested for using her car as part of a blockade of the Springer Press building. Thousands of students converge on the 20-story Springer Press headquarters that straddles the Berlin Wall. Ulrike Meinhof is there, having driven there with her konkret editor (and future Baader-Meinhof biographer) Stefan Aust. Many students have parked their cars in front of the building, forming a blockade. Aust suggests that Meinhof park her car in the blockade, but she isn't so sure she wants to get involved to such an extent. They compromise by parking her car at the very end of the blockade, but Meinhof is arrested anyway. Later she avoids conviction by persuading the court that she is only guilty of a fantastically poor parking job. Tentative as it is, Meinhof's poor parking job is her first direct action against the capitalist system. It would not be her last.

13th October 1968 Baader, Ensslin and Soehnlein and Proll are convicted of arson and sentenced to 3 years

1969 June -- The four arsonists and firebombers are released from prison as their cases are reviewed.

November 1969 , -- The Federal Court ends the temporary freedom of the four arsonists and demands they return to prison. Söhnlein complies but the other three flee Frankfurt and head to Paris. They stay at the apartment of Regis Debray, millionaire revolutionary who is serving a 30-year sentence in Bolivia for helping the efforts of Ché Guevara (Debray will be released the next year, 28 years early). Proll's sister Astrid turns up to join the band. A few days later, in Strasbourg, the groups dumps Thorwald Proll; his days as a terrorist are over. The group sneaks into Italy and lays low.

December 1969 - Filming begins on Ulrike Meinhof's (at right) telefilm "Bambule." The film is about a riot among the residents of a girls youth home. Elsewhere in Berlin the lawyer Horst Mahler begins to formulate a plan: he wants to create an Urban Guerrilla group modeled on Uruguay's Tupamaros. Unlike the West Berlin Tupamaros that are active at the time, Mahler's new group will be completely underground and would eschew pranks for real praxis. Ulrike Meinhof moves from her Dahlem apartment to an apartment on the fashionable Ku-Damm street, along with her twin daughters Bettina and Regine. Filming ends on "Bambule" and editing begins in preparation for a May air date.

February 1970 , Heidelberg - A young psychiatrist working at Heidelberg University gets fired. Dr. Wolfgang Huber has angered the universit officials with his unorthodox therapy methods. In response to his firing, Huber's patients, mostly students, occupy the offices of Huber's hospital director, who ultimately agrees to keep Huber on. Huber's radical psychiatric thesis is this: his patients are indeed sick. But their sickness is the product of Capitalist society, and the only way to cure them is to foment a Marxist revolution. Huber's patients organize themselves and the Socialists Patients Collective (SPK) is born.

Late February 1970, Berlin - Two visitors show up at Ulrike Meinhof's door, needing a place to stay. Bettina and Regine are introduced to "Uncle Hans" and "Aunt Grete;" Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are back in Berlin.

Early March 1970 Berlin -- Baader and Ensslin meet up with Dieter Kunzelmann, whose West Berlin Tupamaros had been mildly terrorizing Berlin the previous year with humorous pranks, and potentially deadly bombs. Kunzelmann wants Baader and Ensslin to join his gang, but the talks break down when Baader suggests that he be the leader rather than Kunzelmann. Horst Mahler, the brilliant socialist lawyer, is at the meeting as well and encourages Baader and Ensslin to instead join up with the new group he is forming. Baader is more amenable to this suggestion; he figures that he can easily muscle Mahler aside once the group gets going. Baader and Ensslin move out of Meinhof's apartment into a less conspicuous pad. The members of Mahler's new revolutionary army set about trying to secure weapons in their war on the Capitalist state. Among those involved at this early date are: Mahler, Baader, Ensslin, Astrid Proll, Manfred Grashof, his girlfriend Petra Schelm, and Mahler's secretary Monika Berberich.

3 April 1970, Berlin - On their way from picking up a buried stash of guns, Astrid Proll and Andreas Baader are stopped by police. The cops quickly deduce that Baader is not the "Peter Chenowitz" listed on his forged ID card, but are not quite sure who they have on their hands so they take him into custody. Mahler inadvertently gives away Baader's identity the next morning when he calls the police station and asks for information about the arrest of "Herr Baader." "Only if you can confirm that the person we have in custody is, in fact, Herr Baader," replies the cop. April 1970 , Berlin - Baader receives many visitors in his Tegel prison cell during his first month back in confinement. Mahler visits him many times, as does Berberich. Meinhof visits him as well, as does "Dr. Gretel Weitermeier," who is actually his fugitive girlfriend, Ensslin. A plan is formulated to get Baader out. It involves a ruse in which Meinhof will claim to prison officials that she has been contracted to write a book with Baader. Meinhof and Baader would need to study at a library outside of the prison, requiring a brief leave from the prison under armed guard. During the leave, a "commando unit" would release Baader. The only sticking point would be securing the cooperation of Meinhof. Knowing for certain that she would have to make a complete break from her current life, including giving up her children, Meinhof is quite reluctant to participate. Ensslin goes to work on Meinhof. Despite all of Meinhof's success in journalism, she is continually plagued by self-doubt. She worships the abrasive Ensslin, who was able to so successfully turn her Marxist theory into praxis with the Frankfurt bombings two years earlier. And Ensslin had so easily given up her own baby Felix in the name of the revolutionary cause. Ultimately Ensslin won Meinhof over with a combination of Ensslin's shrill persuasiveness and Meinhof's desire to belong. Meinhof begins making plans to send her kids underground immediately after the rescue of Baader. The action is set for mid-May. The publishing house of Klaus Wagenbach is contacted and agrees to hire Baader and Ensslin; they are unaware that they are part of a ruse.

14 May, Berlin 1970 - A car pulls up to the Dahlem Institute for Social Research. Two guards get out and escort a handcuffed Andreas Baader to the front door. An elderly employee of the Institute, Georg Linke, escorts them to the reading room, where Ulrike Meinhof waits. Baader's cuffs are removed and he and Meinhof set to work. Two garishly dressed girls arrive at the front door, Irene Goergens and Ingrid Schubert. Linke lets them in, but makes them sit in the hall until Meinhof and Baader are done in the reading room. The front doorbell rings again, and the two girls trip the electric lock to let in a masked woman (Ensslin), and a masked man sporting a loaded Beretta (the man has never been identified). As Linke rushes to escape, the man shoot him in the liver, critically wounding him. The four, all now with guns in their hands, burst into the reading room, shooting wildly (but aiming low). Meinhof and Baader jump out the large picture window, with the other three following quickly behind them. In the conservative Springer Press a name is born: "the Baader-Meinhof Gang."

Sunday, May 24, 1970 - Meinhof's "Bambule," scheduled to air, is pulled from the television schedule.

2 June 1970, The German Press Agency received a communiqué (English Excerpt / German Full Text) claiming credit for securing Baader's release from prison. Probably written by Ulrike Meinhof, the communiqué is the first time that the group uses the term "Red Army," which later would give rise to their official name: Red Army Faction.

8 June 1970, Amman, Jordan - Half of the group sneaks into East Berlin, and then heads to the Jordan desert to a Palestinian training camp,to be followed by the rest of the group a week later. In Jordan the fledgling guerrillas learn how to shoot guns, throw grenades, and thoroughly annoy their Palestinian hosts. After two months the Palestinians are completely sick of their disrespectful German guests and send them on a plane out of Jordan. The gang heads back to Berlin.

September 1970 , Italy - Stefan Aust, former editor of konkret, former friend of Ulrike Meinhof, and future biographer of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, meets up with group member Peter Homann, who had been kicked out of the group in Jordan. Homann tells Aust of Meinhof's two daughters, Bettina and Regine, who are secretly being cared for by two hippies at the foot of Mt. Etna. In Jordan, Homann overheard Meinhof agreeing to send the kids to Jordan to be raised as Palestinian terrorists; now he was soliciting Aust's help in returning the kids to their father. Aust rescues the kids, returns them to their father, and for a while becomes a marked man of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Back in Berlin gang member Hans-Jürgen Bäcker recruits two motor mechanics, Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Eric Grusdat, into the periphery of the group. Mahler conceives of an audacious plan to rob four Berlin banks simultaneously.

1970 September 29, Berlin Three banks are robbed simultaneously in the early morning (a fourth bank job is canceled when the bank proves to be filled with construction workers). The robberies net over 200,000 DM.

Early October, Berlin -- New recruits join the gang at a rapid clip. Jan-Carl Raspe and his girlfriend Marianne Herzog join, as does Ali Jansen.

1970 October 8, Berlin - Acting on a tip, police stake out a Berlin apartment where they have been told that Baader, Ensslin, and Mahler will be meeting. Baader and Ensslin never show, but Mahler, Monika Berberich, Brigitte Asdonk and Irene Goergens are all captured.

10 October 1970, Berlin The surviving groups members meet up, and with Mahler gone, there is little doubt that Baader is in control. Suspicion turns towards Hans-Jürgen Bäcker as the snitch who gave away the location of the meeting place two days earlier. Bäcker denies everything, but quickly leaves; his days as a terrorist are over.

November-December 1970 The groups perfects its car-stealing technique, utilizing a "doubles method" where they put the license plate number and paperwork of a legal car onto a stolen car, thus eliminating questions if stopped by police. The group also uses some of their bank-job money to buy guns. Several new recruits come on board: Ulrich Scholze, Tinny Stachowiak, Beate Sturm and an earnest film student named Holger Meins.

4 December 1970, Berlin Eric Grusdat is arrested.

Early Winter 1970, Bonn -- Always protective of their own sovereignty, the leaders of the various Länder (states) agree to allow a special section of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) to be created to oversee Germany's anti-terrorism efforts. After the second World War West Germany had been created as a loose confederation of states, with little in the way of an internal federal presence. There is no national police force on the order of America's FBI, only the various Länder police forces. In the early 70s terrorists were able to take advantage of this decentralization by constantly traveling between the various states, whose police forces seldom shared information in a concerted manner. But the exploits of the Baader-Meinhof Gang persuade the German states to allow for a federal intrusion on their rights. The BKA anti-terrorism commission is headed up by Alfred Klaus, who immediately set about writing a 60-page report on the group's activity until that point.

20 December 1970, Berlin - Ulrike Meinhof leaves a false ID at a checkpoint, giving authorities a recent photo of her new hair color. -- same day -- Frankfurt - Karl-Heinz Ruhland is arrested by the police and quickly begins talking. Though he never learns the real names of the other members of the gang (he only knew their code names), Ruhland will become a star witness at many of the Baader-Meinhof trials to come.

23 December 1970 , Nuremberg - Ali Jansen and Ulrich Scholze are arrested after trying to steal a car. Jansen shoots at a cop; he later will get

10 years for attempted murder. Scholze is released the next day, leaving his terrorist days forever behind him.

January 1971 , Kassel -- Young Beate Sturm, tired of being on the run, quietly returns home to her mother.

15 January 1971, Kassel - Two banks are raided at the same time netting 115,000 DM. For one of the bank jobs, a BMW 2000 was stolen in Frankfurt. The BMW was one of the Baader-Meinhof Gang's favorite cars to steal; because they were fast, easy to break into, and easy to hot-wire. In the coming year the group would become so associated with the sporty little Bavarian cars that people would joke that BMW stood for "Baader-Meinhof Wagen."

Beginning of 1971 - Ulrike Meinhof writes the Baader Meinhof Gang's manifesto: "The Concept Urban Guerrilla." - It achieves wide circulation by May. On its cover is a logo: a rifle over a star, with the letters RAF on top of them. The rifle is a Kalashnikov Rifle. The Red Army Faction is born. The Kalashnikov would later be replaced in the logo by the German-made Heckler and Koch machine pistol.

2 February 1971, Federal Republic Hans-Jürgen Bäcker, who left the group the previous year, is arrested

1971 - 10 February, Frankfurt am Main - Baader-Meinhof Gang members Manfred Grashof and Astrid Proll are stopped by two undercover police agents. Grashof pulls out a pistol (Proll is unarmed) and they both run. One of the cops fires his pistol, missing both Grashof and Proll. Partially with the aid of a sympathetic passer-by, Grashof and Proll escape.

Mid-February 1971, Heidelberg - Siegfried Hausner and Carmen Roll of the Socialists Patients Collective (SPK) attempt to bomb the train of the Federal Republic's president. They arrive too late at the train station and their plan is thwarted. Through the coming months the SPK begins to align itself with the the Red Army Faction; soon they stop signing their documents "SPK," and began signing them "RAF."

12 April 1971 , Frankfurt am Main - Ilse "Tinny" Stachowiak is arrested at the train station in Frankfurt. She is recognized from her photograph on one of the millions of ubiquitous wanted posters seen throughout the Federal Republic.

Spring 1971 , Berlin - Horst Mahler, Irene Goergens, and Ingrid Schubert go on trial, for their involvement in the release of Baader, in the criminal court of Moabit prison. Mahler is acquitted (though he still has two other charges pending), and Goergens and Schubert are convicted. Goergens gets six years and Schubert gets four.

24 June 1971, Heidelberg -- Though the SPK have progressively moved closer towards terrorism, the police are mostly unaware of it. This day police stop a couple of SPK members at a traffic checkpoint. The SPK members take off, and one of them fires a shot at the cops, hitting one in the arm. That night the police raid the SPK offices, arresting many members. The SPK dissolves, and many of its former members resolve to go completely underground -- soon joining up completely with the RAF and forming the core of the so-called "second generation of the RAF."

8 July 1971 , Berlin - Two Berlin radicals, Thomas Weissbecker (loosely connected to the RAF and future members of Movement 2 June) and Georg von Rauch (soon to help form Movement 2 June), are in a Berlin courtroom, charged with beating a journalist from the hated Springer Press. Von Rauch is convicted and Weissbecker is acquitted, but in the confusion after the sentences are announced, von Rauch and Weissbecker (who looked quite similar) switch places and von Rauch walks out of court a free man. As soon as von Rauch had had sufficient time to escape, Weissbecker announces that he is the one who should have been released. Confused and embarrassed court personnel are forced to release him.

Summer 1971, Berlin -- Former members of Kommune I, and former members of the now-disbanded West Berlin Tupamaros, form "Movement 2 June." Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin encourage the group, which includes Bommi Baumann and Fritz Teufel, to join the RAF. They demure, wary of Baader's insistence on total leadership, and prefer to stay in Berlin anyway.

15 July 1971, Hamburg - RAF members Petra Schelm and Werner Hoppe are stopped at a police roadblock. They are driving a stolen BMW 2002. They burst through the barricades and are chased by two police cars. The BMW slams to a halt as the police corner them. Schelm and Hoppe jump out and run, firing their guns as they sprint away. Hoppe gets cornered by police, who arrest him. Schelm runs into an alley, and a cop corners her. She fires at him and he returns the fire. Petra Schelm, age 20, is dead.

21 July 1971, Berlin - Dieter Kunzelmann is arrested for his bombing activities in the West Berlin Tupamaros. Later he will be convicted and sentenced to nine years.

25 July, Federal Republic - A remarkable poll by the respected Allensbach Institute is published. One in five Germans under thirty expresses "a certain sympathy" (klammheimliche freude) for the members of the Red Army Faction. One in ten Northern Germans said that would willingly shelter RAF members for a night. The members of the RAF, hoping to expose what they saw as a fascist underbelly of the German state and cause ordinary Germans to rise up and revolt, are greatly encouraged by the poll results.

1 September 1971, Bonn - Horst Herold is selected to be Chief Commissioner of the Bundeskriminalamt. He immediately goes about centralizing efforts to track down the Baader-Meinhof Gang. He builds a computer system which contains every singe fact or bit of evidence relating to the gang.

25 September 1971, Freiburg -- Two police officers, Helmut Ruf and Friedrich Ruf (not related), approach an improperly parked car on the Freiburg-Basel autobahn. RAF members Margrit Schiller and Holger Meins hop out and begin shooting. Friedrich Ruf is shot through the hand, and Helmut Ruf is seriously injured. Meins and Schiller escape.

22 October 1971, Hamburg - Margrit Schiller is captured by police. While arresting her, RAF members Irmgard Möller and Gerhard Müller attempt to rescue her, getting into a shootout with police. Police sergeant Heinz Lemke is shot in the foot. Sergeant Norbert Schmid is killed.

Early December 1971 , Federal Republic Police dragnets nab Movement 2 June member Rolf Pohle and RAF member Marianne Herzog.

4 December 1971, Berlin Georg von Rauch and Bommi Baumann are pulled over by a police officer. The cops lines them up on the war, but when the cop is momentarily distracted, von Rauch pulls out his own gun and begins shooting. The cop shoot von Rauch dead. Baumann gets away.

22 December 1971, Kaiserlautern - RAF members Klaus Jünschke, Ingeborg Barz, Wolfgang Grundmann raid a branch of the Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank. A police officer, Herbert Schoner, walks in on the raid and is shot dead. The four terrorists escaped with 134,000 Deutsche Marks. January 1972, Cologne - A Cologne policeman pulls over a BMW 2000 with Berlin plates. Knowing of the Baader-Meinhof Gang's love of BMW's, the policeman is cautious and points his gun at the car's driver as he asks for the driver's registration. Andreas Baader, the car's driver, leans over, reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a gun -- and shoots at the policeman. Baader escapes, and the cop is uninjured.

28 Jan. 1972 The Interior Minister’s Conference passes Radikalenerlass (Anti-Radical Act). The most significant measure, the Berufsverbote, bars all people with left histories from working at any level of the Civil Service.

2 February 1972, Berlin -- Berlin police investigate a bombing at the British Yacht Club - killing an elderly German boatbuilder Irwin Beelitz. Movement 2 June claims responsibility, indicating that the attack was in support of the Irish Republican Army.

21 February 1972, Kaiserlautern - Members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, in full carnival-mask regalia, raid the local branch of the Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank, netting DM 285,000. Later that day Gang member Ingeborg Barz (who had been in the group for about three months) telephones her mother in Berlin, indicating that she wants to quit. Crying, Barz tells her mom that she will leave the group soon and return home. She is never seen alive again.

1 March 1972, Tübingen - Police nerves are wearing thin. With the shootout death of police officer Norbert Schmidt the previous October weighing in their minds, the police are wary that any minor traffic stop might be a date with death. In Tübingen, police attempt to apprehend a young man fleeing in a car. Eventually the man is mowed down by a police submachine gun. Seventeen-year-old Richard Epple is dead; he was fleeing police because he was driving without a license.

2 March 1972, Hamburg & Augsburg -- Hamburg police raid an apartment used by the Baader-Meinhof Gang for producing forged documents. In the evening, Manfred Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann enter the apartment and are surprised by the police. Grundmann gives up immediately, but Grashof fires at the cops from behind Grundmann. Police Chief Superintendent Hans Eckhardt, who is in charge of Hamburg's Baader-Meinhof Special Commission, takes two bullets. The other police return fire and shoot Grashof in the head and chest. Grashof will survive, but Eckhardt dies in Eppendorf University Hospital two weeks later. --- In Augsburg police close in on a young couple that they had kept under surveillance for four weeks. A cop with an itchy trigger finger shoots Thomas Weissbecker, loosely connected to the Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Movement 2 June (and perpetrator of last year's prison switch with Georg Von Rauch). Hit in the heart, Weissbecker dies instantly. His companion, SPK member Carmen Roll, is taken into custody.

15 March 1972, Federal Republic - Karl-Heinz Ruhland, the auto shop worker turned terrorist turned informer, is sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his participation with the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

29 March 1972, Bielefeld - Till Meyer, Movement 2 June member, is arrested after a shootout in Bielfield. No one is injured.

11 May 1972, Frankfurt am Main -- Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Meins, and Jan-Carl Raspe place three pipe bombs near the entrance the the I.G. Farben building, which houses the headquarters of the US Army Corp. The bombs explode within minutes of each other from 6:59 AM to 7:02 AM. The officer's mess is destroyed. A shard of glass flies from the glass window of the mess and lodges deeply into the throat of Lt. Colonel Paul Bloomquist. A decorated Vietnam veteran and father of two, Bloomquist bleeds to death on the floor of the officer's mess. Damages to the building are estimated to be DM 1,000,000. The Baader-Meinhof Gang, calling themselves the "Petra Schelm Commando," claims responsibility in a communiqué (Full German Text), which demands the end to the American mining of North Vietnamese harbors.

12 May, Augsburg & Munich -- Angela Luther and Irmgard Möller sneak into the Augsburg Police department and leave two time-delay pipe bombs. The bombs explode shortly after noon, injuring five policemen. Later in the Baader, Meins, and Ensslin leave a car bomb to explode in the parking lot of the state Bundeskriminalamt in Munich, destroying 60 cars. The Baader-Meinhof Gang, calling themselves the "Tommy Weissbecker Commando," claims responsibility for both bombings.

May 1972 - Baader, Raspe, and Meins put a car bomb in the Volkswagen of Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, who had signed most of the Baader-Meinhof arrest warrants. Buddenberg's wife, Gerta, is in the car when it explodes, severely injuring her. A communiqué (Full German Text) is released claiming responsibility for the the bomb. It is signed, "The Manfred Grashof Commando."

19 May 1972, Hamburg - Meinhof, Siegfried Hausner, Klause Jünschke, and Ilse Stachowiak place six bombs in the Hamburg offices of the Springer Press. Three fail to explode, but the other three bombs blow up around 3:15 PM, injuring 17 people. "The 2 July Commando" claims responsibility.

24 May 1972 Heidelberg -- Irmgard Möller and Angela Luther drive two cars onto the Campbell Barracks of the US Army Supreme European Command in Heidelberg. It is an easy enough job, the guards wave any cars with American license plates through; a pair of stolen plates ensures that they will not be stopped. Helped by Baader and Meins, Möller's and Luther's cars are equipped with 50 pound bombs. Möller and Luther surely notice that the area they park their cars in is frequented by soldiers and their families. At around 6:00 PM Captain Clyde Bonner of the US Army and his friend Ronald Woodward are killed instantly when the car that Möller has driven blows up next Bonner's new Ford Capri. Bonner is blown in half, his head and torso staying next to the car, with parts of his legs drooping off a nearby tree like wet leaves. The outside wall of the nearby base clubhouse collapses as well, knocking over a Coca-Cola machine, crushing and killing Charles Peck, another American soldier. Two days later in a communiqué the "Commando Fifteenth July" (the day that Baader-Meinhof Gang member Petra Schelm was killed), claims responsibility for the bombings; they are "in response to American bombings in Vietnam."

1 June 1972, Frankfurt -- Andreas Baader, with a bullet in his leg, peroxide in his hair, and fashionable sunglasses on his face, is pulled from a hideout by police. Baader and Holger Meins fought a gun battle with police before their capture. -- Acting on a tip, police began staking out a garage near Frankfurt. Peering inside, the police notice it is empty of people, but full of explosives. They empty the garage of bombs (replacing the explosives with empty containers), and install a listening device. City workers place hundreds of bags of peat and grass outside, as if preparing to plant grass. But the bags are filled with sand; the police expected a firefight. 5:50 AM: a lilac-colored Porsche pulls up outside of the garage. Three men get out. One of the men notices that the surrounding roofs, windows and street corners are covered with dozens--no, hundreds--of men, milling about. Clearly they are cops. The man pulls out a gun and gets off several shots, but is tackled before hitting anyone. Jan-Carl Raspe is finally captured. The other two men--Andreas Baader and Holger Meins--make it into the garage, locking the double doors behind them. A television crew shows up and begins filming the siege. The police drill a hole into the garage and push in tear gas canisters, but the gas mostly wafts into the apartments upstairs. After about three hours, Baader appears in the doorway, loading a magazine into his weapon. A police sniper shoots him, injuring his leg. He screams and retreats back into the garage. A few minutes later Meins gives himself up. The cops force him to strip to his undershorts to ensure that he isn't carrying any weapons. After Meins' capture the cops storm the garage, nabbing Baader.

8 June 1972, Hamburg -- Gudrun Ensslin, almost beside herself with grief since the capture of her beloved Andreas, wanders into the Linette clothing boutique in Hamburg. After laying her jacket down to try on sweaters, a sales clerk notices that the jacket has a heavy bulge in a pocket. Closer inspection reveals that the bulge is a gun; she calls the police. Gudrun is taken into custody a short while later.

9 June 1972, Berlin -- Baader-Meinhof Gang member (and original member of the SPK) Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Movement 2 June member Bernhard Braun are captured in Berlin.


15 June 1972, Hanover -- Ulrike Meinhof and Gerhard Müller spent the past two days at the apartment of a teacher, who was a friend of one of Ulrike's Schili connections. At first the teacher does not realize exactly who is sleeping under his roof, but he takes his suspicions to his girlfriend the next morning and then to the police. On 15 June, the police begin staking out the apartment. Müller leaves the apartment to go to use a phone booth. Police attempt to arrest him as he picks up the receiver. He pulls out his pistol, but is quickly wrestled to the ground. Later, much later, Müller will prove to be the most valuable catch of all of the Baader-Meinhof Gang; he will turn on his comrades and testify against all of them. For now, though, the police aren't even sure who they have captured. Prior to his arrest no one had even suspected his involvement with the group. After Müller's capture the police go upstairs to the apartment. They knock on the door and Meinhof answers. They take her into custody immediately. She seems shocked, and begins to cry. Initially she does not struggle, but after a few minutes she begins screaming and fighting. By the time she is photographed by the press at the police station a few hours later, her face is completely swollen. To many who see her face in the paper the next day, Meinhof surely has been beaten by the police. Though they are fairly certain that they have captured Meinhof, the police do not have definitive proof. They do not have fingerprints of Meinhof to compare against. One of the police officers finds a copy of Stern magazine in the hide-out apartment; in it is an article about Meinhof. Accompanying the article is a photograph of an X-Ray of Meinhof's brain, taken after an operation in 1962 when Meinhof had a metal clip placed over an engorged blood vessel in her head. One of the officers suggests that they X-ray her head to see if the woman that they have captured has a clip in her head. After forcibly anesthetizing Meinhof, an X-ray is taken, revealing the tell-tale clip.

25 June 1972, Stuttgart -- Police burst in the apartment of a young Scottish businessman named Iain Macleod (they are acting on tips that he is involved with the Baader-Meinhof Gang). Macleod shrieks; the police shoot, killing him. Police never conclusively link him to the activities of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

7 July 1972, Offenbach -- New Baader-Meinhof Gang member Hans-Peter Konieczny is cornered by police. He is quietly persuaded that the likelihood of him going to prison will be lessened if he aids in the capture of other gang members. Konieczny sets up Klaus Jünschke and Irmgard Möller, who are easily captured by the police. Konieczny is released from custody two months later.

13 July 1972 Federal Republic -- Lawyer and sometime RAF member Jörg Lang, who had brought Konieczny into the group, is arrested on suspicion of supplying the group with apartments.

5 September 1972, Munich -- Any hopes that the days of the terrorism menace is behind them for the Federal Republic are put to a rest. Amidst the glory of the Olympic Games, "Black September" Palestinian terrorists capture Israeli hostages in the Olympic Village. A bungled rescue operation by the Bavarian state authorities leads to the deaths of all eleven hostages, five Palestinians, and one cop.

20 September 1972, Zweibrücken -- Meinhof is transferred from Ossendorf Prison to Zweibrücken Prison to take part in an identification line-up. Meinhof is determined to ruin the process by screaming "I'M ULRIKE MEINHOF!" The police instruct the other women in the line-up to follow suit; the witnesses are treated the unforgettable spectacle of six women screaming and clawing at their guards; five impostors and one true criminal all screaming hysterically: "SWINE!" "THIS IS ALL JUST A SHOW!" and "I AM ULRIKE MEINHOF!"

11 December 1972, Berlin -- Till Meyer of Movement 2 June is sentenced to three years in prison for the attempted murder of a policeman.

Late 1972, Andreas Baader is brought to Berlin to testify in Horst Mahler's trial. While on the stand, Baader takes the opportunity to publicly announce a hunger strike for all Baader-Meinhof prisoners. Word quickly spreads to the captured terrorists held in over ten different prisons across the Federal Republic.

9 February 1973, Cologne After eight months of total isolation in the "Dead Section" of Cologne's Ossendorf prison, Ulrike Meinhof is finally moved to an area of the prison that is populated by other prisoners. The move is prompted by the hunger strikes that most of the Baader-Meinhof Gang members are waging. The hunger strikes are called off, and Meinhof is put back in the "Dead Section" within a week.

Early 1973 - With most of the members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang captured, authorities spread them out among many prisons across the Federal Republic. Holger Meins is held here, in Wittlich Prison. All of the other main Baader-Meinhof prisoners are in prisons throughout the Federal Republic: Andreas Baader in Schwalmstadt, Jan-Carl Raspe and Astrid Proll in Cologne with Meinhof (but in separate wing), Gudrun Ensslin in Essen, Holger Meins in Wittlich, Irmgard Möller in Rastatt, and Gerhard Müller in Hamburg.

February 1973, Hamburg -- Margrit Schiller is released from prison, and promptly goes back underground.

3 March 1973, Khartoum -- Black September Palestinian guerrillas execute American diplomats Cleo Noel Jr. and George Moore. The diplomats had been among many hostages taken by Black September from the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum. The guerrillas have been demanding the release of Sirhan Sirhan (Bobby Kennedy's killer), many Palestinians held in Jordan, all Arab women detained in Israel, as well as all members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

8 March 1973, Cologne -- The New York Times reports that "West Germany's security authorities are in the process of establishing a special anti-terrorist department to counteract foreign and domestic political militants suspected of plotting violence. ...Its principal task is to infiltrate German and foreign anarchist groups with the aim of gathering the kind of intelligence that would enable the police to take preventative measures."

Spring 1973, Essen -- Gudrun Ensslin uses characters from Moby Dick as new code-names for the imprisoned members of the gang. Gudrun becomes "Smutje," Baader "Ahab," Holger Meins "Starbuck," Jan-Carl Raspe "Carpenter," Gerhard Müller "Queequeg," and Horst Mahler "Bildad." Gudrun dubs Meinhof "Teresa," which was not a character from Moby Dick. Baader-Meinhof Biographer Stefan Aust later theorizes that Ensslin named Meinhof "Teresa" after the 16th Century Saint.

8 May - 29 June 1973, Federal Republic -- The prisoners begin their second hunger strike, which lasts two months. Despite being located in many prisons throughout the Federal Republic, the prisoners are able to communicate by using their lawyers as go-betweens.

7 July 1973, Berlin -- Movement 2 June member Gabi Kröcher-Tiedemann is arrested after a shootout.

July 1973, Munich -- A skeleton of a woman is found in the woods outside of Munich. Police identify the remains as Ingeborg Barz, a former Baader-Meinhof member who has been missing for a year. There have been claims that Baader shot Barz after she indicated that she wanted to leave the group. The dead women found near Munich had not been shot, and many people dispute the police identification.

27 July 1973, Berlin -- Movement 2 June raids a Berlin bank, netting DM 200,000.

August 1973, Berlin -- Movement 2 June member Inge Viett escapes from her prison cell by sawing through her bars with a smuggled saw.

13 November 1973, Berlin -- Movement 2 June member Till Meyer escapes from Castro-Rauxel prison.

12 December 1973, Berlin -- Gabi Kröcher-Tiedemann is sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for the attempted murder of a policeman.

Christmas1973 , Cologne - Ulrike Meinhof stops all contact with her children. Her beloved "mice," Bettina and Regine, never see their mother again.


4 February 1974, Hamburg & Frankfurt -- Police raids in Hamburg and Frankfurt result in the re-arrests of Ilse Stachowiak, Christa Eckes, and Margit Schiller, and the arrests of Helmut Pohl, Kay-Werner Allnach, and Wolfgang Beer.

5 February 1974, Cologne -- Gudrun Ensslin is transferred from Essen to Cologne's Ossendorf prison, and placed into the cell next to Ulrike Meinhof.

13 February 1974, Berlin -- The trial for the bombing of Berlin's British Yacht Club by members of the Movement 2 June begins. Verena Becker, Wolfgang Knupe, and Willi Rather are the defendants. Students and radicals riot outside the courtroom.

April 1974, Stuttgart -- Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin are transferred to Stuttgart's Stammheim prison. They are the first residents of Stammheim's newly refitted high-security wing. The plan is for all of the major Baader-Meinhof defendants to ultimately live in Stammheim. Plans are set in motion to build a large, self-contained courthouse in the potato field beside Stammheim prison. The courthouse, costing millions, is to be built especially for the pending Baader-Meinhof trial, and then converted for prison use.

27 April 1974, Berlin -- Meinhof is transferred temporarily to Berlin's Moabit prison to be tried for her part in the May 1970 freeing of Andreas Baader. Meinhof is tried with Horst Mahler, who is already serving time for his part in the crime (he had previously been found Not Guilty of participation, but the verdict was set aside), but is now being tried for "criminal association, and Hans-Jürgen Bäcker, who is believed to be the gunman who shot the elderly librarian Georg Linke in the 1970 rescue of Baader. Meinhof uses her courthouse pulpit to announce another hunger strike among the prisoners. Mahler declines to take part in the hunger strike, thus essentially confirming that he is no longer a member of the RAF. His former associate Monika Berberich denounces him on the Moabit stand: "[Mahler is an] unimportant tattler and a ridiculous figure."

4 June 1974, Berlin -- Ulrich Schmücker, a member of Movement 2 June, is shot by his fellow terrorists in the Grunewald, the large forested park on the Western edge of Berlin's Dahlem neighborhood. Some believe Schmücker was executed because his fellow terrorists believed that he was an informant. According to Stefan Aust, he was accidentally shot during a "mock" execution designed to scare him.

Mid-year 1974, Federal Republic -- "The Urban Guerrilla and Class Conflict," an official history and manifesto of the Red Army Faction, is written by Meinhof (with major editing by Ensslin) and released. A lawyer for the SPK, Eberhard Becker, is arrested.

September 1974, Federal Republic - A document from some of the imprisoned group leaders, explaining the reasons for their hunger strike, is smuggled out of prison by defense lawyers and released publically.

2 October 1974, Stuttgart -- The five primary members of the gang, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Holger Meins, are indicted officially of dozens of crimes, including murder. Baader is transferred to join Ensslin in Stammheim (Meinhof is still on trial in Berlin). Holger Meins, whose physical health has been severely weakened by the hunger strike, stays in his Wittlich jail cell. All of the prisoners continue their hunger strikes, though there is evidence to believe that a few of the prisoners, like Baader, are cheating. Prison officials begin force feeding Ensslin and Meins, strapping them to tables, opening their mouths with pry-bars, and forcing feeding tubes down their throats.

9 November 1974, Wittlich -- Holger Meins lays dying in his Wittlich cell. A tall man, he now weighs less than 100 pounds. His lawyer, Siegfried Haag, visits him in jail and realizes that he is dying. By 5:00 PM, Holger Meins is dead.

10 November 1974, Berlin -- Response to Meins' death - Demonstrations take place in Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and Stuttgart. -- In the evening, a delivery man shows up at the door of Günter von Drenkmann, the president of Germany's Superior Court of Justice. Von Drenkmann, celebrating his 64th birthday, opens the door to the delivery man, and several other people jump from the bushes and overpower von Drenkmann. In the mêlée, Drenkmann gets shot three times, and dies a short while later in the hospital. The attack was apparently a botched kidnapping by Movement 2 June, in response to the death of Meins. Germany is polarizing. Many people interpret Meins' death as a murder, pure and simple, and join the growing number of "sympathizers" who support the terrorists' cause. Others are sickened by the murder of von Drenkmann and look for the government to stop the terrorists by any means necessary. Police conduct massive nationwide raids in the weeks following von Drenkmann's murder. Two Protestant church figures, Rev. Cornelius Burghardt and Undine Zühlke (a social worker and wife a prominent minister), are arrested, accused of smuggling a Baader-Meinhof letter out of prison. Over 100 members of the Evangelical Church quit the following day in disgust with the police action. Burghardt and Zühlke are released on 29 November. Volker Speitel, a former Red Aid volunteer who, along with his wife Angelike, has been working in Klaus Croissant's office organizing the "info system" between the various prisoners, goes underground following the death of Meins. The lawyer Siegfried Haag puts Speitel in contact with the remnants of the Red Army Faction. Speitel meets up in Frankfurt with Hanne-Elise Krabbe, Bernhard Rössner, Lutz Taufer and Ullrich Wessel. Most of these people are former members of the Heidelberg Socialists Patients Collective (SPK), a radical organization of psychiatric-patient students who believe their mental illnesses are the result of Capitalism. Speitel quickly surmises that the constant police raids have decimated the RAF, leaving it with a few hand grenades, some guns, bombs, and five weary terrorists. After a short stint with the RAF, Speitel quickly tires of life underground and rejoins Croissant's office.

Late November 1974, Cologne & Stuttgart -- Former student leader, "Red" Rudi Dutschke, visits Jan-Carl Raspe in Ossendorf prison. Dutschke's young son, Hosea-Ché Dutschke (named after a biblical character and Ché Guevara), tags along. Raspe is transferred to Stammheim shortly thereafter. At Ulrike Meinhof's request, Baader-Meinhof lawyer Klaus Croissant convinces famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre to visit Andreas Baader in prison. His chauffeur in Stuttgart is Hans Joachim Klein, who will participate two years later with Carlos the Jackal in the terrorist take-over of the yearly OPEC ministers meeting.

29 November 1974 , Berlin -- Meinhof is sentenced to eight years imprisonment for her part in the 1970 freeing of Baader. Mahler is given an additional 4 years (for a total of 12 years), and Bäcker is found not guilty.


1 January 1975, Bonn -- "Lex Baader-Meinhof," or the "Baader-Meinhof Laws" become effective. These laws, which are amendments to the "Basic Law," West Germany's quasi-constitution, allow the courts to exclude a lawyer from defending a client merely if there is suspicion of the lawyer "forming a criminal association with the defendant." The new laws also allow for trials to continue in the absence of a defendant if the reason for the defendant's absence is of the defendant's own doing; i.e. they are ill from a hunger strike.

27 February 1975 , Berlin -- At about 9:00 AM, Peter Lorenz leaves his home in the Zehlendorf district. Lorenz is the CDU (Christian Democrat Union) candidate for mayor in the West Berlin city elections to be held in three days. Less than half a mile from his house, his Mercedes is blocked by a large truck, and a Fiat rams his car. Lorenz's driver, Werner Sowa, is beaten, and Lorenz is kidnapped into a waiting automobile. The kidnappers are from Movement 2 June. Sowa identifies Angela Luther, who has been underground for three years, as one of the kidnappers. Authorities put up a $44,000 reward for information. Current Berlin Mayor Klaus Schütz (Lorenz's SPD opponent and a personal friend of Lorenz's) announces that the elections will take place as scheduled, but all campaigning will be called off.

28 February 1975, Berlin -- A Polaroid photo is released early in the morning showing Lorenz with a sign around his neck: "Peter Lorenz, prisoner of the 2 June Movement." With the photo is a demand for the immediate release of six terrorists: Horst Mahler, Verena Becker, Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, Ingrid Siepmann, Rolf Heissler, and Rolf Pohle. Except for Mahler, all are either members of Movement 2 June, or connected to it. A message is attached to the demands: "to our [Baader-Meinhof] comrades in jail. We would like to get more of you out, but at our present strength we're not in a position to do it." The kidnappers have been careful in making their selections; no terrorist accused of murder is on the list. The kidnappers demand that authorities provide a Boeing 707 within three days. Three of the prisoners, Pohle, Kröcher-Tiedemann, and Heissler, must be flown from their jails throughout the Federal Republic to Berlin within two days. The others are already in Berlin. When all six are ready to fly on the 707 to a country of their choice, they are to be given $9,000 each. Furthermore, the kidnappers want former Mayor Heinrich Albertz to accompany their jailed comrades on the flight to guarantee their passage. Albertz was the mayor who initially condemned the rioting during the Shah visit on 2 June, 1967, but was ousted after he had a change of heart. Albertz agrees to participate, but only in his role as a Protestant pastor, and not in his role as a former politician. The kidnappers also demand the unconditional release from a Berlin prison of a couple of small-time left-wing protestors, Ettore Canella, an Italian, and Gerhard Jagdmann, who both were arrested for protesting during the previous November.

1 March 1975, Berlin -- Newspapers worldwide print the image of Ettore Canella sprinting to freedom out of his Berlin jail. Behind him, Gerhard Jagdmann strolls out assuredly. During their evening broadcasts, the German news programs show interviews with Gabi Kröcher-Tiedemann from her Essen jail cell, and Horst Mahler from his Berlin cell; both refuse to be released, electing to stay in prison.

1-3 March 1975, Stuttgart -- Bugs are secretly installed in five of the Baader-Meinhof cells at Stammheim prison, by the Counter-Espionage unit of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

4 March 1975, Frankfurt & Berlin -- Heinrich Albertz and the rest of the Lufthansa crew fly back to Frankfurt from Aden, South Yemen, having released Pohle, Becker, Heissler, Siepmann, and Kröcher-Tiedemann (who had a second change of heart and elected to make the trip after all). A car screams through Berlin's Wilmersdorf district shortly before midnight. Lorenz is pushed out of the back seat, his blindfold removed, and given a 50-fenning coin. He stumbles over to a phone booth as the car tears off. Lorenz calls his wife and lets her know that the ordeal is over. Within minutes police begin raiding suspected radical hideouts throughout Berlin and the Federal Republic.

6 March 1975, Paris -- A bomb rips through the Paris offices of Axel Springer's newspaper chain, destroying it. A Paris news agency receives a typewritten note from "the 6 March group," claiming that the bombing was committed to demand "the liberation and total amnesty of the Baader-Meinhof group."

8 March 1975, Aden -- Press reports indicate that leftist South Yemen government has asked the freed terrorists to leave their country, apparently from pressure by West Germany.

15 April 1975, Karlsruhe -- Four American lawyers formally protest the "Baader-Meinhof Laws" in Germany's Constitutional Court: former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, radical "Chicago Seven" lawyer William Kunstler, powerful leftist lawyer Peter Weiss, and William Schaap. Their protests do little good. The court approves the laws, allowing the Baader-Meinhof judges to exclude Klaus Croissant, Kurt Groenwald, and Hans-Christian Ströbele from the defense team. These moves are ironic because Croissant, Groenwald, and Ströbele have all been recently kicked off of the defense team already by the Baader. The Baader-Meinhof defendants clearly want it known who was in control, and any perceived ideological weakening of one of their lawyers resulted in the sacking of that lawyer.

24 April 1975, Stockholm -West German embassy siege, murder of Andreas von Mirbach and Dr. Heinz Hillegaart Dr. Heinz Hillegart, one of the hostages in the Stockholm embassy takeover, is taken to a window sill and shot dead. - His body is left to hang partially out of the window. 4 dead, of whom 2 were RAF members --- Six Red Army Faction terrorists, most of whom were former members of the Heidelberg Socialist Patients Collective (SPK), take over the West German Embassy in Stockholm, taking 11 hostages. The terrorists are: Siegfried Hauser, Hanne-Elise Krabbe, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Lutz Taufer, Bernhard-Maria Rössner, and Ullrich Wessel. Swedish police quickly occupy the lower portion of the embassy. The terrorists order them to leave, saying they will kill the military attaché if the police don't comply. They don't. Angry, the terrorist bind the hands of the embassy's military attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Baron Andreas von Mirchbach, and order him to walk toward the top of the stairs of the upper floor. Then they shoot him in the leg, head and chest. Police drag the dying man away (after stripping down to their underwear to show that they were unarmed) and then move out of the building. The terrorists pile massive amounts of TNT into the basement of the facility, and then call the German Press Agency and list their demands. The want all Baader-Meinhof defendants released immediately. This time Bonn does not respond quite as favorably as they did during the Lorenz kidnapping. The kidnappers indicate that they will begin shooting a hostage every hour until their demands are met. After one hour Dr. Heinz Hillegart, the embassy's economic attaché is taken to an open window. A terrorist shoots him and leaves the elderly Hillegart's body hanging like a rag doll out of the window. Shortly before midnight a wiring short causes the TNT to explode prematurely. Ullrich Wessel is killed immediately, but all of the other terrorists and hostages survive, most with bad burns. All of the terrorists are captured without a fight. Terrorist Siegfried Hausner is particularly badly burned, and is flown to Stammheim Prison's medical ward a few days later. He dies in prison on 5 May. The terrorists in the operation had been handpicked by Siegfried Haag, the lawyer associate of Klaus Croissant. With the imprisonment of the leaders of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Haag has become the de facto leader of the so-called "second generation of the RAF," which is dedicated almost solely to freeing the first generation's leaders from prison.

Mid-May 1975, Stuttgart -- Technicians from the Federal Intelligence Service install two more bugs in two unoccupied Stammheim cells; now seven Baader-Meinhof prison ward cells are bugged.

21 May 1975, Stuttgart -- The pretrial hearings of the Baader-Meinhof leaders begins in the newly constructed Stammheim prison courtroom. Utilitarian in nature, the courtroom was constructed on the grounds of Stammheim prison at a cost of DM 15,000,000. The roof is covered with jagged razor wire to prevent helicopter landings and steel nets to prevent any potential airborne bombs from doing damage, the entrance has a sophisticated metal detector. Otto Schily, Marielouise Becker, Rupert von Plottnitz, and Helmut Riedel are present as defense lawyers, but Baader is still without representation with the expulsion of Croissant, Ströbele and Groenwald. Several state appointed defense lawyers are present as well. Judge Theodor Prinzing is the lead judge of several judges that jointly oversee the trial.

5 June 1975 , Stuttgart-- Baader begins the second day of hearings by reminding the court that is still without representation. He also makes the bold claim that the cells are bugged. His suspicions are dismissed out of hand by the skeptical German press; Baader is getting paranoid, they say. Two years later the existence of the bugs will be admitted by government authorities. They will claim that they only monitored the bugs briefly during the Stockholm Embassy stand-off, and again briefly in 1976. Supposedly the authorities immediately erased all of the tapes; no copies will ever turn up.

23 June 1975, Stuttgart -- Croissant and Ströbele are arrested and Croissant's Stuttgart offices are raided.

19 August 1975, Stuttgart -- The defendants are finally officially charged: Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe are jointly charged with four murders, 54 attempted murders and a single count of forming a criminal association.

Mid-Summer 1975, Berlin -- Members of the Movement 2 June steal thousands of U-Banh (subway) tickets and freely distribute them to grateful Berliners upset at recent price hikes in the tickets. Movement 2 June members also participate in two bank raids in which they distribute chocolate kisses to the customers and bank staff.

September 1975, -- most of the Movement 2 June leadership is in jail: Ralf Reinders, Till Meyer, Inge Viett, Julianne Plambeck, Fritz Teufel, and Gabrielle Rollnick. They are all charged with the Lorenz kidnapping and the bank raids. Reinders is charged with the murder of von Drenkmann in November of the previous year.

21 December 1975, Vienna -- An all-star cast of terrorists, led by the infamous Carlos the Jackal, bursts into a OPEC conference. Among the terrorists were Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, the Movement 2 June member who had been released as part of the Lorenz kidnapping, and Hans-Joachim Klein, a member of the little-known German terrorist group Revolutionary Cells, who had served as Jean-Paul Sartre's chauffeur when he visited Baader in Stammheim. Kröcher-Tiedemann kills two men in the raid, an Austrian policeman Anton Tichler, and an Iraqi guard, Khafali. Carlos kills a Libyan civil servant, Yousef Ismirli. Klein is seriously wounded in the mêlée, but the operation otherwise works out well; Carlos secures $5 million ransom for Palestinian causes and the terrorists are able to disappear into the Middle East.

13 January 1976, Stuttgart -- After months of pretrial courtroom maneuvers, the Baader-Meinhof trial officially begins. The defendants immediately admit to membership in an urban guerrilla group, and admit to "political responsibility" for the bomb attacks that they have been charged with (as opposed to direct responsibility).

Late January 1976, Stuttgart -- Dierk Hoff, in who's metal shop the Baader-Meinhof bombs of 1972 were made, testifies for the prosecution.

February & March 1976, Stuttgart -- The trial continues with testimony about the bombings of the Heidelberg U.S. Army headquarters, the Augsburg police offices, and the Criminal investigation offices in Munich. The defendants do not attend most of the proceedings. Privately, the tension between Ulrike Meinhof and the other prisoners, particularly Gudrun Ensslin, heats up. Meinhof grows increasingly depressed. Gerhard Müller and Irmgard Möller, on trial elsewhere, get four and a half years for some of their terrorist activities.

March 1976, Düsseldorf -- The trial of the SPK/RAF defendants who overtook the Stockholm Embassy begins.

4 May 1976, Stuttgart -- After staying away from the courtroom by choice for a month, Meinhof attends the trial with Andreas Baader, Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe. She leaves after 15 minutes, never to appear in court again. After she leaves, Baader-Meinhof lawyers attempt to have the court compel several witnesses: Richard Nixon, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georg Kiesinger, Walter Scheel, and others. The lawyers' plan is to prove that the United States' involvement in Southeast Asia was a violation of international law, and therefore the American targets of the Baader-Meinhof Gang could be considered legitimate targets. The presiding judges reject the applications.

7 May 1976 Dreieich-Sprendlingen near Offenbach -- Police officer Fritz Sippel was shot in the head when checking two RAF member's identity papers.

9 May 1976, Stuttgart -- The body of Ulrike Meinhof is found hanging by a makeshift rope from the grating covering her Stammheim cell window -- it's Mother's Day. An official (not indepepdent?) investigation concluded that she had hanged herself, a result hotly contested at the time! Meinhof had torn a towel into long strips, and twisted the strips into a rope. She stood on a stool under the window, carefully threaded the rope through the small mesh grating, wrapped the other end of the rope around her neck, and kicked the stool aside. The death is officially ruled suicide by strangulation at the post-mortem held later in the afternoon.

11 May 1976, Stuttgart - A second post-mortem is held at the request of Weinke Meinhof, Ulrike's sister, and at the request of the Baader-Meinhof defense lawyers. The presiding examiner, Dr. Werner Janssen, issues a statement after the examination: "To judge by the usable findings of the second post-mortem, Frau Meinhof suffered death by hanging. The findings of the examination so far available give no grounds for suspecting any extraneous factors." -- Later, the findings of the two postmortems are called into question by those believing Meinhof to have been murdered. Jan-Carl Raspe speaks about Meinhof's death in open court. "We believe that Ulrike was executed," he says. Raspe says that even though the relationship between Meinhof and Baader was strained at times, it should be not considered evidence that she wanted to commit suicide.

Mid-May 1976, Frankfurt & Berlin -- Massive demonstrations against the "murder" of Meinhof are held throughout the Federal Republic, the largest being in Frankfurt and Berlin. Bombs go off in Nice and Paris, France, and at the American air base in Frankfurt.

16 May 1976, Berlin -- Meinhof's funeral is held at Holy Trinity Protestant Cemetery in the Mariendorf section of West Berlin. Thousands of supporters attend. Klaus Wagenbach, the leftist publisher who unwittingly became a central part of the ruse to free Baader in 1970, speaks to the crowd, along with several other prominent leftists.

27 June 1976, Entebbe - Notorious terrorist "Carlos" evades capture after Israeli commandos storm a plane that he had hijacked with German terrorists. An Air France Airbus is hijacked en route from Tel Aviv to Paris, and touches down in terrorist-friendly Uganda. The terrorists are led by the notorious "Carlos the Jackal," and include Revolutionary Cells (RZ) members Wilfred Böse and Brigitte Kuhlmann. In exchange for the hostages, the hijackers demand the release of forty Palestinians held in Israel, five prisoners held in Kenya, one in France, one in Switzerland, and six German prisoners: Jan-Carl Raspe, Ingrid Schubert, and Werner Hoppe of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and Fritz Teufel, Ralf Reinders and Inge Viett of Movement 2 June. Before any prisoners are released, an Israeli commando team storms the plane and frees all of the hostages, save for an elderly Jewish woman, Dora Bloch; she had been transported earlier to a hospital. When the hostages were rescued, an angry Ugandan president, Idi Amin, reportedly showed up at the hospital to personally strangle her with his bare hands. Böse, Kuhlmann and most of the other hijackers are killed; Carlos escapes.

7 July 1976, Berlin -- Monika Berberich of the Baader-Meinhof Gang escapes from Lehrterstrasse maximum security prison in Berlin, along with Movement 2 June members Inge Viett, Gabrielle Rollnick, and Juliane Plambeck. They beat up a guard, hop over a wall, and disappear.

8 July 1976, Stuttgart -- Gerhard Müller, former Baader-Meinhof comrade who had been arrested with Ulrike Meinhof, testifies against the defendants in the Stammheim trial in exchange for a reduced sentence. Müller describes the structure of the RAF in great detail.

21 July 1976, Berlin & Athens -- Monika Berberich is captured in Berlin. Rolf Pohle, who specialized in acquiring arms for terrorists like the RAF, is captured in Athens. Pohle is only extradited after Chancellor Helmut Schmidt threatens the Greek government with massive economic sanctions if they fail to turn him over (he is returned to Germany in October).

22 July 1976, Stuttgart -- Brigitte Mohnhaupt testifies at the Stammheim trial, refuting Müller's damaging testimony.

28 July 1976, Stuttgart - SPK member Klaus Jünschke also testifies against Müller's testimony at the Stammheim trial. At one point Jünschke leaps over the judge's bench and attacks presiding judge Theodor Prinzing. The attack is used against Jünschke the following year during sentencing for his own crimes; it is used as "proof" of Jünschke's fanatical hatred of the state. He is given life imprisonment for "joint murder" during the pre-Christmas 1971 Kaiserlautern bank raid, despite flimsy evidence of his presence at the bank.

August 1976, Hamburg -- Kay-Werner Allnach and other imprisoned RAF members are placed on trial for their participation. During his previous two years in solitary confinement and in a hospital recovering from intestinal cancer, Allnach had chosen to break from the RAF. During his trial, Allnach will refuse to testify against his former comrades.

22-27 November 1976, Frankfurt -- Siegfried Haag, a former lawyer associate of Baader-Meinhof lawyer Klaus Croissant, and Roland Mayer are arrested in Frankfurt. Haag had gone underground after the arrests of Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin, and the others to attempt to rebuild the RAF.

13 December 1976, Vienna -- Sabine Schmitz and Waltraud Boock, comrades of Haag's, are arrested following an unsuccessful bank raid in Vienna.

4 January 1977 Giessen Attack against US 42nd Field Artillery Brigade at Gießen. In a failed attack against the Gießen army base, the RAF sought to capture or destroy nuclear weapons present.[27] A diversionary bomb attack on a fuel tank failed to fully ignite the fuel, and the assault on the armory was then repulsed, with several RAF members killed in the ensuing firefight. The presence of U.S. warheads on German soil was classified and officially denied at the time, and the incident received little publicity. General William Burns, who commanded the base in 1977, detailed the attack in a 1996 interview.

Mid-January 1977, Stuttgart -- Presiding Judge Theodor Prinzing is finally removed on appeal from the trial after 84 previously unsuccessful appeals by Baader-Meinhof lawyers. One of the lawyers had proven that Prinzing was feeding information about the trial to the Appeals Court judge who would ultimately hear any appeals to the case.

16 March 1977, Stuttgart -- It is revealed publicly that the state had previously installed bugs in seven of the cells used by Baader-Meinhof prisoners. The state claims that the bugs were only briefly used twice. Few believe it.

29 March 1977, Stuttgart -- Raspe, Baader, and Ensslin make their final appearance in court. Manfred Künzel, Ensslin's court-appointed lawyer, elects to resign the case, citing the bugging incident.

7 April 1977, Karlsruhe - During the trial Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, his driver, and his bodyguard were shot and killed by two RAF members .while waiting at a red traffic light. Claimed by the Ulrike Meinhof Commando.28 April 1977, the trial's 192nd day, the three remaining defendants were convicted - life imprisonment.

21 April 1977, Stuttgart -- The final day of testimony for the Baader-Meinhof trial.

28 April 1977, Stuttgart - The verdict is read. Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe are found guilty of four murders and over 30 counts of attempted murder. Each defendant is sentenced to life imprisonment. After almost two years, 192 actual days of testimony, and at a cost of over 15 million dollars, the trial is over.

May 1977, Stuttgart -- Stammheim Prison prepares its high security wing to accept other Baader-Meinhof prisoners from around the Federal Republic. The plan is to provide a super-high security prison environment where all of the terrorists can be permanently segregated from the other prisoners. During construction in the cell block, Baader and Raspe manage to "borrow" several tools capable of burrowing into concrete and patching it up later.

Late June 1977, Stuttgart -- Three RAF prisoners arrive at Stammheim from a Hamburg prison, joining Baader, Ensslin, Raspe, Schubert, and Möller. Later, Verena Becker, who is actually a member of Movement 2 June, joins them as well.

30 July 1977, Oberursel -- Susanne Albrecht, born of wealthy, well-connected parents, pays a visit to the home of Jürgen Ponto, a friend of her father's and chairman of the Dresdener Bank. Albrecht, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, and an unidentified man, shoot Ponto five times, killing him. He was killed in front of his house in a kidnapping that went wrong. Those involved were Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar, and Susanne Albrecht, sister of Ponto's goddaughter

Early August 1977, Sensbechtal -- At a memorial service for Ponto, attended by most of the biggest names in German industry, Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the Employers Association and board member of Daimler-Benz, ruefully notes, "the next victim of terrorism is almost certainly standing in this room now."

25 August 1977, Karlsruhe -- Members of the so-called "Second Generation of the RAF" build a rocket launcher and take over an apartment directly across the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Karlsruhe. The device does not go off as planned, sparing dozens of lives. Later, in court, the builder of the rocket, Peter-Jürgen Boock, claims that he had a change of heart after seeing all of the innocent office workers that he knew would die at his hands. Boock claims that he deliberately tampered with the timer to prevent the rocket barrage from taking place; the court does not believe him.

5 September 1977, Cologne -- Hanns-Martin Schleyer, who made the prophetic statement at Ponto's memorial the previous month, is kidnapped from his car, despite the protection of three police officers. Officers Reinhold Brändle, Roland Pieler, and Helmut Ulmer are killed, along with Schleyer's chauffeur, Heinz Marcisz. All of Schleyer's kidnappers escape. This is the first day of what would later be called "the German Autumn." -- Hanns Martin Schleyer was a former officer of the SS and NSDAP member -- then President of the German Employers' Association. His driver was forced to brake when a baby carriage suddenly appeared in the street in front of them. The police escort vehicle behind them was unable to stop in time, and crashed into Schleyer's car. Five masked assailants immediately shot and killed the three policemen and the driver and took Schleyer hostage.

6 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- A letter addressed "To the Federal Government" is left in the mailbox of a Protestant dean in Wiesbaden. Inside is a photograph of Schleyer and a note: "The Siegfried Hausner Commando took prisoner the President of the Employers Association and the Federation of German Industry, Hanns-Martin Schleyer." The note demands "the release of Red Army Faction prisoners Baader, Ensslin, Raspe, Verena Becker, Werner Hoppe, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Hanne-Elise Krabbe, Bern Rössner, Ingrid Schubert, and Irmgard Möller." The note demands that the prisoners be allowed to fly to the country of their choosing, along with 100,000 DM each. Accompanying the letter is a handwritten note from Schleyer. "I have been told that if investigations continue, my life is in danger. The same would apply if the demands are not met and the ultimatums observed. However, the decision is not mine. --Hanns Martin Schleyer." The white Volkswagen Minibus used in the kidnapping is found in the parking garage of the Wiener Weg apartments in Cologne.

7 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The kidnappers are sent a message from Horst Herold, commissioner of the BKA. He wants further proof of that Schleyer is alive; the kidnappers comply by sending a tape of Schleyer giving answers to personal questions. The kidnappers transfer Schleyer to an apartment in Erfstadt-Liblar (about 30 minutes outside of Cologne), which had been rented the previous month by Monika Helbing, for the purpose of hiding Schleyer. Other messages by Schleyer are delivered later in the day to two different Protestant church figures. The BKA goes on TV at midnight and addresses the kidnappers.

8 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The BKA again addresses the kidnappers through the mass media; but because of their experiences with the Peter Lorenz kidnapping in 1975, they are reluctant to continue doing so. They want to prevent another situation where kidnappers have an open soapbox to preach from, so they press for the kidnappers to name an intermediary to negotiate with.

10 September 1977, Geneva -- The German government hires Swiss Lawyer Denis Payot to become an intermediator. Two months later he would be paid 200,000 SF for his work. Payot holds a televised press conference to establish his credentials for the kidnappers. He is called by a member of the Red Army Faction later that evening. The kidnapper demands that one of his imprisoned comrades is to appear on television and state that the preparations for their flight from Germany are underway. Payot dutifully passes on to Bonn the kidnappers' demands.

12 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The BKA instructs Payot to inform the kidnappers that the BKA will hand out questionnaires to the prisoners, asking if they want to leave prison, and if so, which country they want to be flown to. -- Stuttgart -- The BKA sends Alfred Klaus to give the Stammheim prisoners their questionnaires. The preferred destinations listed by the imprisoned terrorists run the gamut from Vietnam, to Algeria, to Libya. The government begins exploratory talks with the governments of Libya and Algeria, to see if they will be willing to take the prisoners. Back at Stammheim, prison officials grow concerned about the forbidden communication between prisoners and begin putting large pads outside the cell doors to prevent the prisoners from talking to each other at night. Unbeknownst to the prison officials, the prisoners have jury-rigged an ingenious electronic "phone" system already. Using a power circuit that connected each cell, but which is turned off for 23 hours of the day, the prisoners modified smuggled radios to send their conversations along the unused wire. They would talk to each other late into the night.

13-21 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The BKA, through Denis Payot, spends as much time as possible stalling the kidnappers, dragging out the details of the escape flight for the prisoners. The kidnappers grow impatient.

22 September 1977 Utrecht The Netherlands Shooting in a bar Arie Kranenburg (46), Dutch policeman, shot by RAF Knut Folkerts

Late September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The Federal Republic passes a special law that allows judges to enforce a strict contact ban between convicted terrorists, and anyone else that the judge sees fit. Normally laws in Germany take many months, or even years, to pass; this law took about a week. Only three members of the Bundestag vote against it. The BKA steps up its "private" investigation (it could not carry out an aggressive public investigation for fear of upsetting the kidnappers). Thousands of police are sent to major telephone switching hubs and to post offices to intercept likely terrorist communication. The most extensive phone tapping operation in German history, and perhaps anywhere, is put in place.

25 September 1977, Wiesbaden -- The BKA tells the kidnappers that Libya and South Yemen have refused to accept the prisoners, but they have yet to receive a response from Vietnam.

27 September 1977, Stuttgart -- Alfred Klaus, of the BKA, flies to Stammheim at Jan-Carl Raspe's request. Raspe hands Klaus a typewritten note indicating that if the countries that have already been mentioned would not take them, then there are several other countries which would suffice: Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, and Ethiopia. .

1-2 October 1977, Stuttgart -- Arnt Müller, Klaus Croissant's associate, is arrested in Stuttgart for his associations with known terrorists. Volker Speitel, an RAF supporter who had briefly gone underground to join the cause, is arrested the following day.

8-11 October 1977, Geneva & Stuttgart -- Payot receives a letter from Schleyer, along with a recent Polaroid. Back at Stammheim, the prisoners are becoming increasingly angry by the contact ban.

13 October 1977, Palma de Mallorca -- A Lufthansa Boeing 737, bound for Frankfurt, is hijacked by Palestinians shortly after take-off. The plane is diverted to Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Almost all of the passengers are German vacationers. Including the crew, there are 91 hostages. "This is Captain Martyr Mohammed speaking," announces one of the hijackers to the Rome air-traffic controllers. "The group I represent demands the release of our comrades in German prisons. We are fighting against the imperialist organizations of the world." The Federal Border Police mobilizes its special GSG-9 anti-terrorist unit. The hi-jacked plane takes off from Rome heading towards the Persian Gulf. The four Palestinian terrorists are: Nabil Harb, Souhalia Andrawes, Nadia Shehadah Duaibes, and Zohair Akache.

14 October 1977, Geneva & Bahrain -- Denis Payot receives another ultimatum, this time demanding the release of two additional Palestinian prisoners. Also demanded is a 15 million American dollar ransom, to be delivered by Schleyer's son, Eberhard. The Lufthansa plane lands in Bahrain, refuels, and heads to Dubai. Joint statements are issued by the Palestinians and the RAF kidnappers of Schleyer.

15 October 1977, Frankfurt & Stuttgart -- "Schleyer's son Eberhard is to hand over 15 million dollars," says an announcement released by the German Press Agency. "The authorities intend to meet one of the demands named by the terrorists by paying the kidnappers 15 million American dollars at mid-day on Saturday. Diplomatic circles in Bonn said on Saturday that a son of the kidnapped President of the Employers' Association Hanns Martin Schleyer, is to hand over the sum demanded at noon in the Intercontinental Hotel in Frankfurt." -- Needless to say the kidnappers do not show up to the Intercontinental Hotel, but hundreds of reporters do. Horst Herold knew that the 15 million dollar ransom would not help get Schleyer back, so he authorized the news release to thwart the kidnappers.

16 October 1977, Dubai -- The Palestinians hijackers have the Lufthansa plane flown from Dubai to Aden, where it lands beside a runway dotted with armored tanks put there for the expressed purpose of preventing it from landing. After the plane lands, the Palestinian's leader, "Martyr Mahmud," shoots and kills the pilot, Jürgen Schumann. His lifeless body is propped in a cloakroom at the back of the 737. Later it will be tossed unceremoniously on the tarmac.

17-18 October 1977, Aden & Stuttgart -- The refueled 737 takes off from Aden, landing a few hours later in Mogadishu, Somalia. The hijackers demand that the German government fly Baader and the other German terrorist prisoners to Mogadishu, or they will blow up the Lufthansa plane. Late in the day a German representative tells Mahmud that the prisoners are being prepared to be flown to Mogadishu. After darkness, a Boeing 707 carrying the crack GSG-9 commando team lands unnoticed at the Mogadishu airport. After an hour of preparation, the GSG-9 unit storms the plane at 5 past midnight (CET), killing three of the four hijackers, and seriously wounding the final one. None of the passengers is injured, save for one stewardess whose leg is is slightly hurt. ---- Much of what happens next is shrouded in controversy. Here's the (certainly wrong) official version: Sometime in the night of October 17-18, between 11:00pm and 7:00am, in cell 719 Baader removes his carefully hidden 7.65 caliber FEG pistol from its hiding place (it was among the dozens of illegal items smuggled into the "most secure prison in the world" by Baader-Meinhof lawyers). He shoots two bullets: one at the wall and one into a pillow, to leave the impression of a fight. Then he holds the gun behind his neck, puts his thumb on the trigger, and pulls it, blowing a hole through the top of his forehead. In cell 716 Raspe takes his hidden 9mm Heckler and Koch pistol, sits on the edge of his bunk, puts the gun to his temple, and pulls the trigger. In cell 720 Ensslin takes a piece of speaker wire and runs it through the narrow mesh grating covering her window. She makes a noose, puts her head through it, stands on a chair, and then kicks the chair aside. In cell 725 Irmgard Möller takes a stolen knife and stabs herself four times. She comes within millimeters of her heart, but misses.

18 October 1977, Stuttgart - All of the prisoners are found the next morning. Raspe is alive, but dies at the hospital. Möller's life is saved at the same hospital. Baader and Ensslin had been dead for several hours when they are found. In the months that followed, an incredulous public can hardly believe that the prisoners had killed themselves, many believe they were murdered. The Baader-Meinhof biographer ("Der Spiegel" corporate press editor), Stefan Aust, claims in his 1985 book, that the prisoners almost assuredly did kill themselves. The surviving Irmgard Moeller insists that they were murdered to this day and denies a suicide pact that features prominently in the official version. In November 1977 the investigative magazine Der Stern reported of a power failure in Stammheim that night. A expert of the BKA testified that Baader was killed "from a distance of 30-40 centimenter" by a shot in the neck. A TV documentary by Stefan Aust, broadcast on ARD on 10. September 2007 speculated on a "suicide under state supervision".

19 October 1977, Paris -- "After 43 days, we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's miserable and corrupt existence," reads a letter received by the leftist French paper Libération. -- "Herr [Chancellor Helmut] Schmidt, who from the start has been reckoning with Schleyer's death in his power calculations, can find him in a green Audi 100 with Bad Homburg plates in the rue Charles Peguy in Mulhouse [France]. His death is of no significance in our pain and rage at the slaughter of Mogadishu and Stammheim. The fascist drama staged by the imperialists to destroy the liberation movement does not surprise Andreas, Gudrun, Jan, Irmgard and ourselves. We will never forgive Schmidt and the imperialists who support him for the blood that has been shed. The fight has only just begun. Freedom through the armed anti-imperialist struggle." After police find Schleyer's body in the trunk of the Audi, they determine that he had been shot three times in the head, probably while kneeling in a forest (his mouth had pine needles in it).

25 October 1977, Stuttgart -- Hanns-Martin Schleyer is buried following a service in Stuttgart's Collegiate Church. German president Walter Scheel attends, saying, "In the name of all German citizens, I ask you, the family of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, for forgiveness."

27 October 1977, Stuttgart -- Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe are buried in Stuttgart's Waldfriedhof Cemetery. Initially many town citizens protest the burying of the terrorists in a public cemetery, but Stuttgart's highly-respected mayor, Manfred Rommel (son of WW II German hero Irwin Rommel), orders the use of the public cemetery. "I will not accept that there should be first and second-class cemeteries," says Rommel. "All enmity should cease after death." The three terrorists are buried pyramid-style in two cemetery plots, with Baader and Raspe on bottom, and Ensslin straddling both of their coffins on top. Above the coffins a two-ton lead cover is laid down to discourage grave-tampering. Several thousand mourners attend the funeral, mourning amidst a thousand machine-gun toting policemen. The so-called "German Autumn" is over. The Baader-Meinhof era is over.

13 November 1977, Munich -- Ingrid Schubert, who was previously transferred to Munich's Stadelheim Prison, commits suicide by hanging herself in her cell in JVA Stadelheim Munich.

December 1977, Paris - Klaus Croissant, Baader-Meinhof lawyer, is extradited from France to face charges of supporting a terrorist organization.

24 September 1978 A forest near Dortmund Murder of a police officer Three RAF members (Angelika Speitel, Werner Lotze, Michael Knoll) were engaged in target-practice when they were confronted by police. A shoot-out followed where one police-man (Hans-Wilhelm Hans, 26) was shot dead, and one of the RAF terrorists (Knoll) was wounded so badly that he would later die from his injuries

1 November 1978 Kerkrade Gun-battle with four custom officials Dionysius de Jong (19) was shot to death, and Johannes Goemanns (24)

later died of his wounds, when they were involved in a gun-fight with RAF members (Adelheid Schulz and Rolf Heissler who were trying to cross the Dutch border

25 June 1979 Mons, Belgium Alexander Haig, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO escapes an assassination attempt

31 August 1981 Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany Large carbomb explodes in the parking lot of Ramstein Air Base

15 September 1981 Heidelberg Unsuccessful rocket propelled grenade attack against the car carrying the US Army's West German Commander Frederick J. Kroesen. Known involved RAF members: Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Christian Klar

18 December 1984 Oberammergau, West Germany Unsuccessful attempt to bomb a School for NATO officers. The car bomb was discovered and defused. A total of ten incidents followed over the next month, against US, British, and French targets

1 February 1985 Gauting Shooting Ernst Zimmerman, head of the MTU is shot in the head in his home. Assassins were never identified, case open.

8 August 1985 Rhein-Main USA Air Base (near Frankfurt) A Volkswagen Mini-Bus exploded in the parking lot across from the base commander's building. Two people are killed: Airman First Class Frank Scarton and Becky Bristol, a U.S. civilian employee who also was the spouse of a U.S. Air Force enlisted man Twenty people are injured. Army Spec. Edward Pimental was kidnapped and killed the night before for his military ID card which was used to gain access to the base. The French terrorist organization Action Directe is suspected to have collaborated with the RAF on this attack. Birgit Hogefeld and Eva Haule have been convicted for their involvement in this event.

9 July 1986 Straßlach (near Munich) - Shooting of Siemens-manager Karl Heinz Beckurts and driver Eckhard Groppler

10 October 1986 Gerold von Braunmühl - shot dead in front of his flat in Bonn-Ippendorf, his attache case is stolen. It is assumed that the content of his briefcase contained docuements about SDI (Star wars) and German industry participation, important for the Reagan-Gorbatchev meeting on the next day.

30 November 1989 - Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe - Bombing of the car carrying the chairman of Deutsche Bank Alfred Herrhausen - The case remained open for a long time, as the delicate method employed baffled the German prosecutors, as it could not come from guerillas like the RAF. Also, all suspects of the RAF were not charged due to alibis. Herrhausen wanted to regulate international finance, 2 month before he spoke to Worldbank meeting. He wanted to reduced 3rd world debt by 50% and a marshall plan for eastern europe. UK and US Bankers were shocked. Assassins were never identified, case open.

1 April 1991 A sharpshooter with special NATO ammunition kills Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, at his police-guarded house in Düsseldorf - As the chief of the Treuhandanstalt, a powerful trust that controlled most people-owned assets in the former East Germany, Mr. Rohwedder was in charge of selling the assets of the former German Democratic Republic to private-owned corporations. He wanted fairness for East German WORKERS, the OWNERS of THEIR factories. His successor Birgit Breuel -- a millionaire banker's daughter -- sold it all off in record time for ONE DOLLAR to western corporations who fired everyone and closed it all down. Assassins were never identified, case open.

27 March 1993 - Weiterstadt - Attacks with explosives at the construction site of a brand new - yet unoccupied - prison - Damage 123 million DM (over 50 million euro)

27 June 1993 -- Bad Kleinen -- .Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams were to be arrested in the train station of Bad Kleinen. Grams and GSG 9 officer Michael Newrzella died during the mission. While it was initially concluded that Grams committed suicide, others claimed his death was in revenge for Newrzella's. Two eyewitness accounts supported the claims of an execution-style murder.

1 December, 1994, Hamburg -- Irmgard Möller, the longest-jailed woman in a German prison and sole survivor of 1977's death night in Stammheim prison, walks out of Luebeck federal prison near Hamburg, a free woman. In poor health, she is released for medical reasons and because she no longer represents a threat to society.

---

1967
1 Jan. 1967
Kommune I founded in West Berlin. The first commune to come out of the student movement, it represented the anarchist tendancy.
6 April 1967 Pudding attack on US Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, in West Berlin.
12 May 1967 Kommune expelled from the "Social Democratic Students" (SDS).
2 June 1967 A student, Benno Ohnesorg, is shot and killed by the police during a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran to West Berlin.

1968

17-18 Feb. 1968 International Vietnam Conference held at Technical University (TU) inWest Berlin.
6 March 1968 Firebomb explodes at Moabit Criminal Court in West Berlin.
2-3 April 1968 Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein firebomb 2 Frankfurt department stores to protest the escalation of the war against Vietnam.
11 April 1968 Student leader, Rudi Dutschke shot in the head and gravely injured in West Berlin. Josef Bachmann, a young extreme right worker from Munich was the assailant. The shooting sparked weeks of violent unrest, primarily directed against the "Springer Press", which had targeted Dutschke in their chain of newspapers.
28 June 1968 Notstandgesetze (Emergency Laws) enacted.
12-16 Sept. 1968 23rd Delegate Conference of SDS in Frankfurt. Steering Committee for Women’s Liberation surfaces publicly.
26 Sept. 1968 DKP (West German Communist Party) formed in Frankfurt. This Party is essentially the reformation of the KPD, illegalized in1956, under a new name.
19 Dec. 1968 Rectorate of the Free University (FU) firebombed.
31 Dec. 1968 KP/ML (Maoist - pro-Albania) founded in Hamburg.


1969
27 Feb. 1969 Richard Nixon visits West Berlin and is met with massive demonstrations and an unsuccessful bombing attempt against his motorcade. Dieter Kunzelmann and Rainer Langhans, Kommune I members, are arrested. The bomb was supplied by Peter Urbach, a Security Police agent provocateur.
1 April 1969 Socialist Bureau founded.
15 July 1969 Local government office in Bamberg severely damaged and blank ID cards stolen.
Fall 1969 Urban guerilla groups the Tupamaros West Berlin and the Tupamaros Munich formed. Six bombings in West Berlin.
16 Dec. 1969 Arrest warrants in connection with West Berlin bombings issued for Bernhard Braun, Michael "Bommi" Baumann and an unidentified Dutchman. All 3 go underground.
Dec. 1969 Socialist Patients Collective (SPK), a collective of mental patients, formed in Heidelberg.

1970
Feb. 1970 Baader, Ensslin,and Proll, temporarily out of prison, decide not to go back and go underground.
A group of West Berlin anarchists, including "Bommi" Baumann, Thonas Weisbecker, and Georg von Ranch arrested while beating Horst Rieck, a joarnalist for Quick, who had recently written a scandal-ridden article about the West Berlin New Left and the political bombings. Baumann's held for 1 ½ years. The rest are released shortly after the arrests.
21 Sept. 1970 SDS disbanded.
March 1970 German Communist Party/Reconstruction Organization (pro-Beijing) founded.
5 April 1970 Baader arrested in traffic control in West Berlin.
5 May 1970 America House in West Berlin firebombed the day after the Army enters Cambodia (Kampuchea) and 4 students shot at Kent State.
14 May 1970 Baader broken out of the library of the Institute for Social Research, where he has obtained permission to work with Ulrike Meinhof on a book about juvenile detention centers. An armed group broke into the library and fled with Baader and Meinhof. An Institute employee, Linke, is shot and badly hurt when he tries to intervene. This marks the beginning of the Red Army Faction (RAF).
23 May 1970 350 arrested protesting a march of Allied troops in West Berlin.
11 June 1970 West Berlin police are armed with hand grenades and machine guns.
June 1970 Some members of the RAF go to Jordan and train with Al Fatah (PLO).
Aug. 1970 The group returns from Jordan and publicly declares itself the RAF.
29 Sept. 1970 3 simultaneous bank robberies mark the RAF's first action. Nets 220,000 DM.
8 Oct. 1970 Acting on a tip-off, police raid a West Berlin apartment and arrest RAF members Horst Mahler (previously a Left lawyer and Baader’s lawyer at the time of his breakout), Irene Georgens, Ingrid Schubert, Monika Berberich, and Brigatte Adonsk.
5 Nov. 1970 Government passes motion allowing the greater use of electronic surveillance methods.
16 Nov. 1970 City Hall in Neustadt broken into, 31 official stimps, 15 passports, and 11 ID cards stolen.
21 Nov. 1970 City Hall in Lang-Gons broken into, 166 ID cards, a bottle of cognac, and more than 430 DM stolen.

1971
15 Jan. 1971 2 banks in Kassel simultaneously robbed.
28 Jan. 1971 Minister of the Interior, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, launches a massive search and destroy mission against the RAF.
10 Feb. 1971 RAF members Astrid Proll and Manfred Grashof exchange fire with the police in Frankfurt.
April 1971 RAF release the Urban Guerilla Concept strategy paper.
6 May 1971 RAF member, Astrid Proll, one of the group who liberated Baader (see 14-05-70), arrested.
18 May 1971 RAF member, Horst Mahler found not guilty in connection with the liberation of Baader, but held under Paragraph 129, as a member of a criminal association. Ingrid Schubert sentenced to 6 years. Irene Georgens sentenced to 4 years.
July 1971 German CP/RO becomes CP/ML. (See March 1970)
8 July 1971 Weisbecker, Baurrann, and von Rauch tried for beating Quick journalist (see Feb. 1970). Baumann and Weisbecker released on bail. Von Rauch, facing other charges, with a possible 10 year sentence, pretends to be Weisbecker and leaves with Baumann. Weisbecker is later released. All 3 go underground. This marks the beginning of the “2nd of June Movement” (2JM), a West Berlin based anarchist guerilla group.
15 July 1971 RAF member Petra Schelm is shot and killed by the police at a Hamburg roadblock. Werner Hoppe is arrested and accused of attempted murder of a cop.
20 July 1971 Dieter Kunzelmann (see 27 Feb. 1968) arrested for allegedly planting a bomb at a lawyer's ball. He is charged with attempted murder.
24 July 1971 Police attack the SPK (see Dec. 1969) for alleged connections with the RAF.
21 Oct. 1971 Policeman Norbert Schmid killed in shootout with the RAF. Margrit Schiller arrested and charged with murder.
16 Nov. 1971 The BKA (Federal Criminal Office) sets up the “Baader-Meinhof Special Commission”.
4 Dec. 1971 During a massive search in West Berlin, following the discovery of a RAF safehouse, 3 2JM members involved in a shootout with the police. Georg von Rauch shot in the head while surrendering unarmed. “Bommi” Baumann and 1 other guerilla escape.
5 Dec. 1971 Between five and seven thousand people demonstrate in West Berlin to protest von Rauch's murder.
8 Dec. 1971 Vacant nurse's residence in West Berlin occupied and named “Georg von Rauch House”.
Dec. 1971 Dieter Kunzelmann sentenced to 9 years for attempted bombing of lawyer's ball (see 20 July 1971).

1972
28 Jan. 1972 The Interior Minister’s Conference passes Radikalenerlass (Anti-Radical Act). The most significant measure, the Berufsverbote, bars all people with left histories from working at any level of the Civil Service.
2 Feb. 1972 2JM bombs the British Yacht Club and accidentally kills Irwin Beelitz, a 66 year old boat-builder.
2 March 1972 Thomas Weisbecker shot and killed by police in Augsburg. RAF member Carmen Roll arrested while trying to flee.
3 March 1972 Demontrations in five cities to protest the murder of Weisbecker.
In Hamburg, police raid a flat, In a shootout with RAF members Manfred Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann, a cop is fatally wounded and Grashof is seriously injured. Grashof is nonetheless removed from the hospital to a prison cell by Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, who is in charge of all RAF arrests.
11 April 1972 Inter-regional Women's Conference in Frankfurt with 400 women from 36 groups.
19 April 1972 400 cops raid Georg von Rauch House, looking for 2JM members living there with false IDs. They are not there, but 28 people are taken in for questioning.
April 1972 Not-guilty sentence against Horst Mahler in the liberation of Baader quashed in appeal (see 18 May 1971).
May 1972 RAF responds to carpet-bombing against Vietnam with a bombing offensive known as the "May Offensive".
11 May 1972 Headquarters of the 5th U.S. Corps in Frankfurt bombed by the RAF. One officer killed, thirteen injured.
13 May 1972 Police headquarters in Augsburg and Munich bombed by the RAF to avenge Thomas Weisbecker’s death. (See 2 March 1972)
14 May 1972 RAF release communiqué For the Victory of the People of Vietnam claiming responsibility for May 11th bombing.
15 May 1972
RAF car-bomb against Judge Buddenberg (see 3 March 1972). His wife is injured.
16 May 1972 RAF release communiqué claiming responsibility for May 13th bombing.
19 May 1972 RAF bombs Springer Skyscraper in Hamburg. In spite of three warnings, the building is not cleared and 17 workers are injured.
20 May 1972 RAF release Fight Fascism communiqué justifying May 15th attack on Judge Buddenberg, and Expropriate Springer communiqué regarding the May 19th attacks.
24 May 1972 Headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe in Heidelberg bombed by the RAF. Three soldiers killed.
25 May 1972
RAF release communiqué justifying May 24th attack on U.S. Army base in Heidelberg.
28 May 1972 RAF issues a Communiqué to the West German Press demanding that they print communiqués issued explaining the May Offensive.
False communiqués issued stating that the RAF will place three random car-bombs in Stuttgart on June 2, the anniverary of the killing of Benno Ohnesorg (see 2 June 1967).
29 May 1972 RAF issues a communiqué About The Fascist Bomb Threats in Stuttgart distancing itself from the false communiqués.
1 June 1972 RAF members Andreas Baader, Holger Meins and Jan-Carl Raspe arrested in a shootout vrith the police in Frankfurt. Baader is injured. Three hundred cops and a tank are used to make the arrests.
7 June 1972 RAF member Gudrun Ensslin arrested in a boutique in Hamburg after a shop attendant notices a gun in her purse.
9 June 1972 RAF member Brigatte Monhaupt and 2JM member Berhard Braun arrested in West Berlin.
15 June 1972 RAF member Ulrike Meinhof and supporter, Gerhard Möller arrested in an apartment outside of Hannover. Police were tipped off by “left-wing” trade unionist from the “progressive” wing of the SPD (Social Democratic Party).
25 June 1972 British citizen, Ian MacLeod shot and killed in his bed by police, who thought he was a RAF member.
5-6 Sept. 1972 Palestinian group “Black September” executes 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich.
12 Sept. 1972 The Interior Minister's Conference founds special counter-terrorism police unit, the GSG-9.

1973
17 Jan. 1973 Forty RAF prisoners begin 4 ½ week hungerstrike against isolation.
March 1973 Squat struggle heats up, with five thousand people participating in violent struggles.
April 1973


“Committee Against Torture,” an organization supported by a wide spectrum of the West German intelligentsia, is founded for the express purpose of focusing public attention on the struggle of the RAF prisoners against the destructive prison conditions in Stammheim.
30 April 1973 Counter-terroriam apparatus substantially enlarged.
8 May 1973 Eighty RAF prisoners begin 7 week hungerstrike for association and free access to political information. The State attempts to kill Baader by withdrawing water for eight days.
11 May 1973
Committee Against Torture (see April 1973) holds a public event at which Heinz Brandt, a member of the board of IG Metall, described the isolation conditions that the prisoners were subjected to as much worse, more dangerous, and more destructive than the conditions he had suffered in four years in a Nazi concentration camp. Dutch psychologist Dr. Sjef Teuns described isolation and sensory deprivation as programmed torture. Sociologist Dr. Christian Sigrist described the West German torture system as part of the worldwide counter-strategy against anti-imperialist combatants.
13 July 1973


Federal Court Judge Knoblich rules that the state could proceed with x-rays and a scintigraphy (neuro-surgery) on Ulrike Meinhof, even against her will, and with the use of constraining devices or anesthesia if necessary. This is based on the Federal Prosecutor Peter Zeis' idea that her revolutionary politics may be the result of some kind of neurological deformity! It was only massive public protest, including the protest of many doctors, which prevented the government from proceeding with its plan.
16 Nov. 1973 In retaliation for September 11th Chilean coup, which brough General Augusto Pinochet to power, Revolutionary Cells (RZ) attack ITT in West Berlin.
17 Nov. 1973 In retaliation for Chilean coup, RZ attacks ITT in Nurenberg.

1974
Jan. 1974 Provincial Interior Minister, Heinz Schwarz, Chairman of the Interior Minister's Conference, proposes the formation of West European police force to deal with guerilla struggle, particularily the RAF.
4 Feb. 1974 Police actions in Hamburg and Frankfurt against an alleged “RAF information network” ends with arrest of Helmut Pohl, Ilse Stachowiak, Margrit Schiller, Christa Eckes, and Wolfgang Beer.
15 Feb. 1974 Security apparatus substantially expanded.
1 May 1974 RZ firebombs Peter Sötje’s car. Sötje was responsible for the demolition of the Putte Youth Centre.
9 May 1974 Autonomous women's movement holds festival, attended by 2000, in West Berlin.
4 June 1974 Ulrich Schmücker, former 2JM member turned police informer, assassinated.
14 June 1974 RZ attacks Chilean General Consulate in West Berlin.
Sept. 1974 RZ actions against Korf Machine Industry in Mannheim and El Al office in Frankfurt to protest Israel’s extermination policy against the Palestinians.
Sept. 13th 1974
Ulrike Meinhof presents a Statement on the Liberation of Andreas Baader during the Stammheim trial.
Forty perisoners from the RAF begin their third collective hunger strike against prison conditions.
October 1974


October the president of the federal Supreme Court, Theodor Prinzig, rules in favour of the force-feeding of hungerstriking RAF prisoners Holger Meins, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader.Force-feeding was not meant to save the lives of the prisoners but as a form of torture. Adelheid Schulz described the effects of force-feeding as "hours of nausea, a racing heartbeat, pain, and effects similar to fever. At times one experiences hot flashes; then one is freezing cold."
October 16 1974
Federal Court filed for seizure of the defense correspondence between defense attorney Kurt Groenewold and the RAF prisoners on the basis that the attorneys were at the core of an illegal RAF information system.
9 Nov. 1974 RAF member Holger Meins dies after a 2 month hungerstrike for association. Demonstrations break out all over West Germany.
10 Nov. 1974 Günter von Drenkmann, President of West Berlin Supreme Court, is assassinated by 2JM, in retaliation for the death of Meins. A subsequent nationwide sweep uncovers a RAF safehouse, 20 people are arrested.
16 Nov. 1974 RZ firebombs the president of Krone Werke’s BMW during a company meeting in West Berlin.
26 Nov. 1974 With Aktion Winterreise (Action Winter Trip), the BKA searches more than one hundred houses in 12 cities. Fourteen people were arrested.
29 Nov. 1974 RAF member Ulrike Meinhof sentenced to eight years.
RAF member Horst Mahler sentenced to fourteen years.
7 Dec. 1974
A bomb explodes in Breman Central Station. Five people are injured.
9 Dec. 1974 The RAF issues a communiqué distancing themselves from the Breman bombing.
13 Dec. 1974
Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Bubak filed for seizure of the defense correspondence between RAF prisoners and defense attorneys Klaus Croissant and Christian Ströbele.
30 Dec 1974
Second Senate Judge Theodor Prinzig ruled that defense attorney Klaus Croissant was acting as “supporter” and “mouthpiece” for the RAF prisoners and, as such, for a “criminal association.” Defense attorney Christian Ströbele was also alleged to be a “member” of a “criminal association” for referring to himself as a “socialist and a political lawyer” and for expressing “solidarity with the thinking of the [RAF] prisoners” whom he referred to as “comrades.”

1975
5 Feb. 1975 RAF prisoners begin hungerstrike.
23 Feb. 1975 Twenty thousand people occupy a nuclear reactor construction site in Whyl.
27 Feb. 1975 Peter Lorenz, CDU candidate for West Berlin, kidnapped by 2JM. They demand release of six imprisoned guerillas: Rolf Pohl, Rolf Heissler, Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, Verena Becker, Ina Siepmann, and Horst Mahler.
3 March 1975 Pohl, Heissler, Becker, and Siepmann flown to Frankfurt with former West Berlin Mayor, Heinrich Albertz as hostage. Kröcher-Tiedemann decides to join them later in the day. Mahler declines.
RZ bombs the Oratory in Bamberg to protest the role of the church in the oppression of women.
4 March 1975 Lorenz released unharmed.
Women of the RZ bomb the Federal Court to protest the law illegalising abortions.
17 March 1975
Defense attorney Klaus Croissant is excluded from representing Baader.
20 March 1975 RAF members Petra Krause and Elisabeth van Dyck and three Swiss citizens arrested in Zurich, Switzerland.
11 April 1975 Interior Minister's Conference further centralizes the BKA and forms Abteilung T (Section T), as a special anti-terrorist unit.
24 April 1975 RAF “Commando Holger Meins”, all former SPK members (see Dec. 1969 and 24 July 1971), occupy the West German Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden and demand the release of 26 political prisoners (see communiqué here). The West German government refuses to negociate and the guerillas execute the Military and Economic Attaches. Police storm the building, detonating explosives, explosives the guerilla had laid. Ulrich Wessel is killed, Siegfried Hausner is fatally insured, five other guerillas are injured.
29 April 1975 RZ attacks the Headquarters of the Immigration Police in West Berlin to commemorate International Workers' Day (May 1st)
30 April 1975 RZ bombs Provincial Government buildings in Mainz and Ludwigshafen to commemorate International Workers' Day. Four suspects in Lorenz kidnapping arrested, including Ronald Fritzsch, Gerald Klöpper, Hendrick Reinders, and Paul Reverann.
4 May 1975 RAF member Siegfried Hausner (see 24 April 1975) dies in Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart.
5 May 1975
Defense attorney Groenewold is excluded as Baader’s lawyer on the basis of allegations that his office served as an “information central” to allow prisoners to communicate amongst themselves.
6 May 1975
Defense attorney Christian Ströbele was excluded as Baader’s lawyer, due to his alleged role in running an "information central" for the RAF.
17 May 1975 Elisabeth van Dyck and Petra Krause extradited from Switzerland to West Germany (see 20 March 1975).
21 May 1975 Trial of RAF members Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe and Andreas Baader begins in Stammheim.
23 May 1975 Federal Interior Minister, Werner Maihofer clairos there are two to three hundred terrorist sympathizers, with a hardcore of about thirty.
30 May 1975 Sigurd Debus, Wolfgang Stahl, Gerd Wieland, and Karl-Heinz Ludwig sentenced to between 5 ½ and 12 years in connection with a bank robbery to finance guerilla activities.
4 June 1975 The European Commission of Human Rights declares that RAF prisoners have been held in unacceptable conditions since 1972.
6 June 1975 2JM member, Till Meyer shot and arrested.
12 June 1975 Parliament begins to debate new “Anti-Terrorism Laws”.
13 June 1975 Left-wing attorney Kurt Groenwald disbarred.
18 June 1975
Andreas Baader presents Statement to Stammheim Trial.
23 June 1975 Defense attorneys for the RAF in Hamburg, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, and West Berlin have their offices and homes searched. Christian Ströbele and Klaus Croissant arrested.
26 June 1975 The Interior Ministers Conference gives police the right to shoot to kill when dealing with suspected terrorists. By the end of 1975 at least sixty four people had been killed.
29 June 1975 RAF member Kathrina Hammerschmidtd dies of cancer in a West Berlin hospital, having been denied adequate treatment until it was too late.
18 July 1975 RZ prints 100,000 false bus and tram tickets and distributes them in mailboxes in West Berlin. Only 3000 are voluntarily returned.
July 1975 2JM carries out a series of bank robberies in West Berlin.
17 Aug. 1975
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe and Ulrike Meinhof's present a joint Statement Regarding Their Identity at the Stammheim Trial.
31 Aug. 1975 The European Commission for Human Rights declares prisoners of the RAF to be political prisoners.
Sept. 1975 The first issue of the feminist journal Courage comes out.
2 Sept. 1975 Trial of RAF members, Manfred Grashof, Wolfgang Grundmann, and Klaus Junschke begins in Kaiserlautern under heavy security.
9 Sept. 1975 2JM members, Inge Viett, Julienne Plambeck, and Ralf Reinders arrested. All three are suspects in the Lorenz kidnapping (see 27 Feb. 1972).
13 Sept. 1975 Bomb explosion in Hamburg Central Station injures eleven. An anonymous caller claims it in the name of the RAF “Commando Ralf Reinders”. The RAF, 2JM, and RZ disclaim it in a common statement accompanying a false bomb in Munich Central Station.
19 Sept. 1975 A mathematician, whose ID papers 2JM member Fritz Teufel had when arrested, is arrested for “supporting a criminal association.”
6 Oct. 1975 A 3 ½ kilo bomb is discovered in the Nurenberg Central Station. It is claimed by the "Southern Fighting Group of the RAF". The guerilla groups again distance themselves.
23 Oct. 1975 West German and French authroities meet to discuss collaborating in the "war against terrorism".
12 Nov. 1975 A bomb explodes in the Cologne Central Station. The RZ distance themselves.
21 Dec. 1975 An OPEC Conference in Vienna, Austria is raided by a mixed Palestinian/West German Commando, who take the oil Ministers hostage and fly to Algeria, where all go free. One guerilla, RZ member Hans Joachim Klein is severely injured in an exchange of fire in the OPEC office, which leaves three dead.
1976
1976
There were 2,956 demonstrations in 1976, the greatest number ever held in one year in West Germany.
Jan. 1976 The West German parliament passes a censorship law, under which writing, producing, publishing, distributing, advertising, selling, or displaying materials “glorifying acts of violence” is a criminal offense, subject to a maximum three year jail sentence.
13 Jan. 1976 The trial of alleged RAF members Margrit Schiller, Wolfgang Beer, Helmut Pohl, Becker, Blenck and Allnach begins. Allnach’s trial is severed form the rest.
6 Feb. 1976 The trial of 2JM members, Annette von Wedel, Ilse Jandt, Sönke Löffler, Wolfgang Strücken, and Wolfgang Wesslau, in the Schmücker case (see 4 June 1974) Former comrade, Jürgen Bodeaux serves as a witness for the State.
4 March 1976 Trial begins against 10 “supporters”, whose ID papers have been found in possession of 2JM members.
16 March 1976 RAF member turned State witness Gerhard Müller sentenced to 10 years. RAF member Irmgard Möller sentenced to to 4 ½ years.
17 March 1976 Pirate radio Unfreies West Berlin (Unfree West Berlin) goes on the air.
27 March 1976 2JM member Andreas Vogel arrested in West Berlin.
April 1976
Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof make joint Intervention in Trial of Commando Holger Meins.
4 May 1976 In a common statement, RAF prisoners claim responsibility for the RAF’s May 1972 Offensive and demand POW status under the Geneva Convention.
6 May 1976 The trial of the members of the RAF “Commando Holger Meins”, Hanna Elise Krabbe, Lutz Manfred Taufer, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Bernhard Maria Rössner (see 25 May 1976) begins.
9 May 1976 RAF member Ulrike Meinhof raped and murdered in prison. The State claims it is a suicide.
10 May 1976 Militants protest with molotov cocktails in Frankfurt to protest the murder of Meinhof. Three day protest hungerstrike of politcal and social prisoners in Berlin-Tegel Prison. Two bombings against West German firms in Paris.
11 May 1976 RAF prisoner Jan-Carl Raspe issues statement, on behalf of RAF prisoners, regarding the murder of Meinhof.
Meinhof's last letters, two to fellow-prisoner Hanna Krabbe and one to the Hamburg prisoners, as well as a Fragment Regarding Structure which she wanted to have presented at stammheim trial, are released by RAF prisoners in order to expose as lies the State's claims regarding "contradictions" between the prisoners.
14-16 May 1976 Thirty six women hungerstrike in Hessen prison against isolation and other torturous prison conditions.
15 May 1976 Meinhof buried. Bomb attacks in Hamm (RZ),West Germany; Rome, Italy: and Zurich, Switzerland.
18 May 1976 Eight thousand demonstrate in West Berlin against murder of Meinhof. Many brutal arrests.
19 May 1976 497 students arrested in Munich during illegal student meeting.
20 May 1976 Prisoners in Cologne-Ossendorf hungerstrike against prison conditions.
23 May 1976 1500 people demonstrate against an nuclear power plant in Biblis.
2 June 1976 RZ "Commando Ulrike Meinhof" bombs Headquarters of U.S. Army and U.S. Officers' club.
"Friends of the 2nd of June" firebomb two fully loaded military trucks at the U.S. Airforce Base in Frankfurt.
3 June 1976 Failed bomb attack against Judge of Hamburg court for attacks against RAF prisoner, Werner Hoppe.
5-7 June 1976 Socialist Bureau organizes Anti-Repression Congress in Frankfurt. Twenty thousand take part. Lawyer Klaus Croissant presents.
14 June 1976 Twenty four lawyers for political prisoners release a statement protesting the murder of Ulrike Meinhof, isolation, and torture.
16 June 1976 Five ex-intelligence agents, including Winslow Peck (National Security Agency - Airforce), Gary P. Thomas (Military Intelligence), Philip Agee (CIA), testify in Stammheim about the use of West German territory by the US for the Vietnamese War effort.
18 June 1976 The office of Klaus Jürgen Langner, Margrit Schiller's lawyer, firebombed. Seven people are injured.
22 June 1976 In the Schmücker trial (see 4 June 1976), Ilse Jandt sentenced to life, Wolfgang Wesslau sentenced to 8 years, Zuchthaus, Strüken, and Bodeaux to 5 years, Löffler and von Wedel to 4 years.
27 June 1976 A Palestinian Commando (PFLP), including 2 West Germans (former RZ) hijack an Air France airliner, going from Tel Aviv, Isreal to Paris, France, and take it to Entebbe, Uganda, demanding the release of 53 political prisoners in Isreal, West Germany, France, Switzerland, and Kenya.
29 June 1976 Kontaktsperre (complete deprivation of all forms of outside contact, including lawyers) enacted against West German prisoners, whose freedom is demanded by the Entebbe hijackers.
30 June 1976 Lawyer Klaus Croissant forbidden from doing any more political cases.
4 July 1976 Israeli counter-insurgency troops storm the airliner in Entebbe, killing 7 guerillas and 80 Ugandan soldiers.
July 1976
Interview with the RAF is published in Le Monde Diplomatique.
7 July 1976 RAF member Monika Berberich and 2JM members, Julianne Plambeck, Gabriele Rollnick, and Inge Viett overpower a guard and scale the wall, escaping from the Lehrter Women's Prison in West Berlin.
12 July 1976 Trial of Eberhard Dreher, charged with supporting the 2JM, begins.
16 July 1976 Lawyer Klaus Croissant arrested and charged with "supporting a criminal association” (RAF).
21 July 1976 Rolf Pohle, one of the prisoners exchanged for Lorenz (see 27 Feb. 1975), is arrested in Athens, Greece.
RAF member Monika Berberich rearrested (see 7 July 1976 ).
22 July 1976
Brigitte Mohnhaupt presents Statement Regarding Structure of the RAF from Stammheim, in order to counter claims of State witness Gerhard Müller.
August 1976
Helmut Pohl presents Statement Regarding Structure of the RAF from Stammheim, in order to counter claims of State witness Gerhard Müller.
7 Aug. 1976 Tunisia turns Dieter Himmelsbach, who was accused of RAF membership in 1974, over to West Germany. His arrest was the result of an INTERPOL investigation.
18-19 Aug. 1976 Left bookstores and publishers in West Berlin, Hamburg, Bochum, Essen, Cologne, Heidelberg, Tubingen, and Munich raided under pretext of "supporting a criminal association". Books are seized and a Bochum book dealer is arrested.
26 Aug. 1976 Bochum book dealer is released.
Writers' Union Conference held in Stuttgart demands an International Investigatory Commission into the death of Ulrike Meinhof (see 9 May 1976).
Sept. 1976 First issue of feminist magazine Courage issued.
2 Sept. 1976 A coalition of left groups calls for an International Russel Committee to investigate repression in West Germany.
28 Sept. 1976 In Hamburg, Christa Eckes, sentenced to 7 years, Helmut Pohl to 5 years, Margrit Schiller to 4s years and 8 months, Eberhard Becker, Ilse Stachowiak and Wolfgang Beer to 4 ½ years, and Kay-Uwe Allnach to 2 years (see 3 March 1972).
1 Oct. 1976 In spite of protests, Greece extradites Rolf Pohle to West Germany (see 21 July 1976).
7 Oct. 1976 RAF prisoners, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader, receive life sentences.
4-5 Nov. 1976 Christa Eckes, Ilse Stachoviak, and Irmgard Möller transferred to dead-wing in Lübeck prison, there they join Annerose Reiche and Brigitte Asdonsk.
10 Nov. 1976 Ministers from 19 EEC countries partake in a "Convention Against Terrorism".
13 Nov. 1976 Anti-nuclear demonstration of 30,000 against a nuclear power plant in Brokdorf.
1 Dec. 1976 22,000 demonstrate against "anti-radical act" (see 28 Jan. 1972) in West Berlin.
Lawyers, Siegfried Haag and Roland Mayor arrested on the Frankfurt-Kassel Autobahn. Haag had been forced underground when he was accused in the international press of being the leader of the RAF outside of prison and of masterminding the "Commando Holger Meins" action (see 24 April 1975). Chief Federal Prosecutor, Siegfried Buback, claims that Haag and Mayer were in possession of a variety of weapons at the time of the arrest. Klaus Croissant is denied the right to represent Haag.
8 Dec. 1976 Lawyer Brigitte Tilgener is denied the right to represent Haag.
10 Dec. 1976 The Federal Prosecutors Office accuses lawyer, Hans-Christian Ströbele of "supporting a criminal association" and applies for a Berufsverbot against him (see 28 Jan. 1972).
13 Dec. 1976 Lawyers Klaus Croissant and Hans-Christian Ströbele denied the right to represent RAF prisoner Brigitte Mohnhaupt.
14 Dec. 1976 RAF member Waltraut Boock arrested in Vienna, Austria, following a bank robbery.
15 Dec. 1976 One of Klaus Croissant's secretaries offered several thousand DM by the Verfassungsschutz (security police) for copies of legal notes and clients names.
17 Dec. 1976 Bomb attack against the Vienna, Austria police information center demanding the release of RAF member, Waltraut Boock (see 14 Dec. 1976). This was followed by 2 bomb threats with the same demand.
21 Dec. 1976 Chief Federal Prosecutor, Siegfried Buback requests that lawyer Jürgen Laubacher not be allowed to represent Siegfried Haag, because he has previously represented political prisoners (see 1 Dec. 1976).
28 Dec. 1976 The State claims that hash has been found in the cells of RAF prisoners, necessitating closer surveillance of lawyer’s visits.
Dec. 1976/Jan. 1977 12,000 students strike in West Berlin against the "anti-radical act” (S3e28-01-72)

1977
Dec. 1976/Jan. 1977 12,000 students strike in West Berlin against the "anti-radical act” (S3e28-01-72)
Jan. 1977 First issue of feminist journal Emma comes out.
5 Jan. 1977 RZ firebombs cinemas all over West Germany, showing Unternehmen Entebbe (90 Minutes at Entebbe), a film celebrating the victory of an Israeli anti-terrorist unit over a PFLP Commando (see 27 June 1976 and 4 July 1976). At the same time they claim credit for the firebombing of Frankfurt Office of Security, the department policing trams and busses for passengers who haven't paid their fare. They also printed tips about how to print phony tickets.
5-6 Jan. 1977 Following a shootout at the Swiss-German border, in which a Swiss border guard is shot, Swiss, West German, and Austrian police collaborate in a search for RAF members Günter Sonnenberg and Christian Klar.
7 Jan. 1977 A bomb placed in the Lörach train station is blamed on the RAF.
11 Jan. 1977 Abu Daoud, suspected of having organized the Black September action at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich (see 5-6 Sept. 1972) arrested in Paris.
12 Jan. 1977 Over protests from West Germany, Isreal, and the USA, Abu Daoud is released and sent to Algeria.
Defense attorney Otto Schily launches a motion of non-confidence against Theodor Prinzing, the judge in the Stammheim trial, when it is discovered that he has played the trial tapes for Welt Chief Editor, Kremp, in spite of the fact that it is illegal to make them public.
The RZ claims responsibility for the December 1976 bombing of the gasoline resevoirs of the U.S. military in Giessen and burning of Officers’ Casino of the Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt to the ground.
15 Jan. 1977
In the early hours of the morning, Gerd Albartus is arrested in Cologne and Enno Borstelmann in Bochum. Both are charged with the attack against the Aachen cinema showing "90 Minutes at Entebbe" (see 5 Jan. 1977).
19 Jan. 1977 Albartus and Borstelmann are charged with membership in the RZ.
27 Jan. 1977 Trial of Waltraut Siepert and Tina Doemland for "supporting a criminal association" (2JM) begins in West Berlin.
European"Anti-Terror Convention" in Strassburg.
2 Feb. 1977 Lawyers Dethloff and Elfferding denied the right to represent 2JM members Till Meyer, IngeViett, and Gabi Rollnick, on a request from the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, based on the fact that they have previously represented political prisoners.
4 Feb. 1977 In Vienna, RAF member Waltraut Boock sentenced to fifteen years in high-security (see 14 Dec. 1976).
6 Feb. 1977 16,000 demonstrate against "anti-radical act" (see 28 Jan. 1972) in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt.
9 Feb. 1977 In West Berlin, the offices of lawyers Efferding and Lieder, both representatives of 2JM members, are raided.
16 Feb. 1977 Offices and homes of Efferding, Lieder, and their employees raided.
Feb. 1977 State begins photocopying ID papers of visitors to trials of suspected guerillas.
18-19 Feb. 1977 Between forty and fifty thousand protest against a proposed nuclear reactor in Brokdorf.
1 March 1977 1,500 women demonstrate in West Berlin against rape and other violence against women.
2 March 1977 West Berlin pirate radio station "Unfree Berlin" does its first Turkish laguage broadcast.
3 March 1977 Police clear 2 squats in Frankfurt.
6 March 1977 Anti-nuclear demonstration in Whyl draws 10,000.
12 March 1977 In Lübeck, police teargas anti-nuclear street theatre and make many arrests.
17 March 1977 State admits to bugging private conversations between RAF prisoners and their lawyers.
22 March 1977 Power pylon for energy from Fessenheims to Paris destroyed.
A committee to fight the "anti-radical laws" is formed in Frankfurt.
29 March 1977 RAF and 2JM prisoners begin fourth hungerstrike, demanding POW status, association in groups of no less than 15, abolition of isolation, and international investigation into the deaths of Holger Meins, Siegfried Hausner, and Ulrike Meinhof, an end to psychological warfare through false actions and communiqués. Thirty five prisoners participate, including Waltraut Boock and Werner Schlegel in Vienna. Soon 100 prisoners are hungerstriking against brutality and force-feeding.
30 March 1977 A power pylon is destroyed.
1 April 1977 2JM members Norbert Kröcher, Manfred Adomeit, and approximately 30 other people are arrested in Stockholm, Sweden. Kröcher and Adomeit are extradited to West Germany. Kröcher is a suspect in the Lorenz kidnapping (see 27 Feb. 1975 ).
2 April 1977 Relatives of political prisoners begin a support hungerstrike.
5 April 1977 Senate approves force feeding in Stammheim.
7 April 1977 Chief Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback, his driver, and a bodyguard are executed by RAF members armed with machineguns and driving motorcycles. The RAF issues a statement justifying the Attack on Siegfried Buback.
Five RAF prisoners begin to thirst strike.
10-11 April 1977 Between ten and twelve thousand take part in Easter anti-nuclear demonstrations.
14 April 1977 Head of Internal Security, Horst Herold claims that there are between four and five hundred terrorists with four to five thousand sympathisers.
17 April 1977 Peter's Church in Frankfurt occupied and turned into a hungestrike information center. Eight people start a solidarity hungerstrike in Bielefeld Church. One hundred and twenty prisoners are now on hungerstrike.
20 April 1977 A false issue of Bild-Zeitung, West Gcrmany’s most popular daily tabloid, is printed with information about Albartus and Borstelmann (see 15 Jan. 1977), Stammheim prison and isolation, and Palestine.
Nine hunger-striking prisoners in Hamburg were forcefully searched and then force-fed.
22 April 1977 2JM members Ingrid Barabas and Christian Möller arrested in Wetzlar.
25 April 1977 Göttinger student newspaper prints a letter celebrating Buback's assassination (see 7 April 1977). The "Buback Obituary" is signed Mecalaro and triggers a debate, known as the Mecalaro affair.
26 April 1977 Lawyers Otto Schily and Hans-Heinss Heldmann temporarily halt their pleas in the Stammheim trial to protest the bugging of their meetings with witnesses.
27 April 1977 Relatives of political prisoners demonstrate at the Headquarters of the United Nations Organization in Geneva, demanding the application of the Geneva Conventions.
28 April 1977 Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader sentenced to life plus 15 years.
Amnesty International sends a letter to the West German government supporting the RAF prisoners under the United Nations guidelines prohibiting torture. In so doing they added their voice to those of eighty theologists, one hundred and twenty-eight U.S. lawyers, one hundred French and Belgian judges and lawyers, and twenty-three English lawyers.
29 April 1977 The feminist guerilla group Rote Zora attacks the Bundesärztekammer (Federal Doctors' Association) to protest the anti-abortion law.
30 April 1977 The Minister of Justice for Baden-Wurttemburg rules that the RAF prisoners’ demands for association be met. In response to these gestures the prisoners ended their hunger strike. Shortly thereafter work began on the seventh floor of Stammheim to allow the association of sixteen prisoners.
30 April – 1 May 1977 First Walpurgisnacht women's demonstration under the slogan “Women Take Back the Night”.
May 1977 Both Spiegeland the left autonomist journal Planderstrand print a letter from former RZ member Hans-Joachim Klein who participated in the OPEC raid (see 21 Dec. 1975), distancing himself from armed struggle. He also sent his revolver and ammunition to Spiegel.
2 May 1977 The weekly news journal Spiegel prints poll results claiming 50% of West German citizens want the reinstatement of the dead-wing in prisons. Thirty five thousand people sign a petition to this effect.
3 May 1977 RAF members Günter Sonnenberg and Verena Becker arrested in Singen. Sonnenberg is shot in the head and Becker in the leg. Sonnenberg is suspected in the Buback assassination (see 7 April 1977) and Becker in the Lorenz kidnapping (see 27 Feb. 1975).
5 May 1977 Alleged RAF members Uwe Folkerts and Johannes Thimme arrested in connection with the Buback assassination (see 7 April 1977).
7-8 May 1977 A conference against repression in West Germany is held in London.
14 May 1977 Anti-nuclear demonstration of 6,000 in Stuttgart.
17 May 1977 Waltraut Siepert sentenced 4 ½ years for "supporting a criminal association" (the 2JM). Christian Doemland receives a one year sentence on the same charge.
2 June 1977 RAF members, Manfred Grashof and Klaus Junschke sentenced to life. Ingrid Barabas and Christian Möller are released due to lack of evidence (see 22 April 1977).
RAF members Verena Becker and Sabine Schmiz start hungerstrike for association with Ensslin, Raspe, and Baader.
mid-June 1977 Kurt Rebmann replaces Siegfried Buback (see 7 April 1977).
13 June 1977 Verena Becker force-fed (2 June 1977).
22 June 1977 RAF prisoners Hanna Krabbe, Bernhard Rössner, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, and Lutz Taufer begin hungerstrike for association with prisoners in Stammheim.
RAF members Sabine Schmitz and Verena Becker break their hungerstrike when they are assured that they will be allowed association with other RAF prisoners. The lawyers Armin Newerla and Arndt Müller charged with attempted murder on the grounds that they did not discourage their clients from hungerstriking.
28 June 1977 RZ bombs the Transit System Security Office in West Berlin, in response to a 23% fare increase.
7 July 1977 RAF prisoner Ali Jansen begins hungerstrike.
Defense attorney Klaus Croissant, facing increasing levels of repression, flees to Paris, requesting political asylum at a press conference.
12 July 1977 Trial of 2JM member Eberhard Dreher begins in West Berlin. Lawyer Klaus Croissant requests political refugee status in France.
16 July 1977 West Germany requests that France extradite Klaus Croissant.
26 July 1977 2JM members Ralf Reinders, Ronald Fritzch, Gerald Klöpper, Till Meyer, Fritz Teufel, and Andreas Vogel charged with shooting Drenkmann (see 10 Nov. 1974). Escaped members Julianne Plambeck, Inge Viett, and Gabriele Rollnick are also charged (see 7 July 1976).
27 July 1977 RAF prisoner Waltraut Boock begins hungerstrike for application of the Geneva Convention and for association with RAF prisoners in Stammheim.
30 July 1977 Jürgen Ponto, the President of West Germany's largest bank, the Dresdner Bank, is shot and killed in his home. The RAF claims responsibility. Ponto’s god-daughter Susanne Albrecht is recognized. Charged with her are Angelika Speitel, Silke Maier-Witt, and Siegrid Sternebeck. All four go underground.
8 Aug. 1977
RAF prisoners renewed their hunger strike in response to the attack on Ponto. Some of the prisoners escalated to a thirst strike almost immediately.
12 Aug. 1977 RAF member Elisabeth van Dyck named as a suspect in connection with the Ponto assassination.
The State began force-feeding those RAF prisoners who were thirst striking. Defense attorneys Ardnt Müller and Armin Newerla began organizing a critical public response.
13 Aug. 1977 Berufsverbot requested against lawyer Kurt Groenwald.
14 Aug. 1977
Susanne Albrecht, god-daughter of Ponto, and member of the RAF commando which assassiated him on July 30th, issue a Statement Regarding the Execution of Ponto in which they state that "it is not clear to us why these people, who start wars in the Third World and destroy entire populations, are dumbfounded when violence faces them in their own house."
15 Aug. 1977
Defense attorneys Müller and Newerla’s office (previously Klaus Croissant’s office, which they had taken over) is destroyed in a bomb attack. The BKA claimed the attack had been carried out by the RAF, but, as Müller and Newerla pointed out, it was certainly a police action as the police had the office under 24 hour a day surveillance.
20 Aug. 1977 Lawyer Armin Newerla arrested with six other people.
22 Aug. 1977 Newerla and six others released, but charges of "supporting a criminal association" are laid against Neverla and one other person.
23 Aug. 1977 Anti-nuclear encampment in Grolinde cleared by 1300 cops.
24 Aug. 1977 RZ bombs MAN factory in Nurenberg, for its part in helping South Africa constuct the atomic bomb.
25 Aug. 1977 Failed bomb attack against the Federal Prosecutors Office in Karlsruhe.
30 Aug. 1977 Lawyer Armin Newerla re-arrested and his office searched.
2 Sept. 1977 Following the breakdown of negociations between Amnesty International and the Federal Government, the prisoners break off their hunger- and thirst-strike. In a short statement Jan-Carl Raspe said the attacks on Ponto and the BAW had created an environment in which the state held the prisoners as hostages and were ready and willing to kill them to set an example. He also noted the support of Amnesty International for the prisoners’ demands as a positive breakthrough
3 Sept. 1977 Bomb attack on the Provincial Prosecutors Office in Flensburger.
RAF issues a communiqué regarding the August 25th Attack on Federal Prosecutors Office in Karlsruhe.
5 Sept. 1977 German's top Industrialist, and former SS officer, Hanns-Martin Schleyer kidnapped from limousine in Cologne, by RAF "Commndo Siegfried Hausner". His chauffeur and three bodygaurds are killed.
6 Sept. 1977 A Weisbaben theologian finds the 2nd communiqué from the “Commando Siegfried Hausner” (the first was never acknowledged) in his mailbox, demanding the release of eleven political prisoners in exchange for Schleyer.
A total Kontaktsperre (communication ban) is instituted against all political prisoners. The Kontaktsperre law deprived the prisoners of all contact with each other as well as with the outside. All visits, including those of lawyers and family members, were forbidden. The prisoners were also denied all access to mail, newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. In short, the prisoners were placed in 100% individual isolation.
8 Sept. 1977 The BKA poses questions over the radio which only Schleyer can answer.
A priest in Mainz finds a message from “Commando Siegfried Hausner”, 2 letters from Schleyer, and a video of Schleyer.
A bishop in Mainz receives a letter from Schleyer answering the BKA's questions.
9 Sept. 1977 AFP News Agency in Bonn receives a message from "Commando Siegfried Hausner" demanding the transportation of the prisoners to the Frankfurt Airport.
Schleyer sends a message to his friend, Eberhard von Brauschitisch, requesting that the State meet the kidnappers' demands so as to save his life.
10 Sept. 1977 Von Brauschitisch, in the name of the Freundekreis Hanns-Martin Schleyer (Circle of Friends of Hanns-Martin Schleyer), enters in contact with Geneva-based lawyer Denis Payot, hoping to negociate Schleyer’s safe release.
Payot receives a phone call from the kidnappers demanding that by 6pm the following evening, the prisoners clarify flight preparations on TV.
11 Sept. 1977 The BKA agrees to fly prisoners out of the country once their destination is clear.
12 Sept. 1977 Bild (a daily tabloid) prints an appeal from Schleyer's wife to the Federal Government, requesting that they comply with the kidnappers' demands.
The kidnappers leave two messages for von Brauschitisch in two different Düsseldorf hotels. One letter sets a deadline of midnight for the State to meet the demands, the other is a tape from Schleyer to CDU (Christian Democratic Party) Chief Helmut Kohl, asking that he work to see that the demands are met. The BKA received a letter by Schleyer from his son Eberhard, requesting that the demands be met.
13 Sept. 1977 Lawyer, Payot receives a final angry ultimatum from the kidnappers, setting the deadline for midnight that night.
At the funeral of Schleyer's driver in Cologne, North Rhein-Westfälen Prime Minister Heinz Kühn delivers a speech warning the kidnappers that Schleyer’s death will have reprecussions for the prisoners.
14 Sept. 1977 Secretary of State Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski flies to Algeria and Libya to negociate their accepting the prisoners.
AFP New Agency in Bonn receives a video of Schleyer requesting that the demands be met.
16 Sept. 1977 The BKA demands proof that Schleyer is alive.
Government Speaker Klaus Bölling sends a letter to the press demanding silence on the kidnapping.
17 Sept. 1977 Kidnappers send proof that Schleyer is a live.
Wischnewski flies to Yemen and Iraq.
20 Sept. 1977 For the third time, the BKA demands proof that Schleyer is alive.
21 Sept. 1977 Cabinet request a Kontaktsperre (cutting of all contact, including lawyers) against prisoners.
22 Sept. 1977 A French Ambassador confers with Interior Minister Werner Maihofer and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, because one of the kidnappers’ messages to Payot came from France. Maihofer requests that France carry out a search.
RAF member Knut Folkerts, a suspect in the Buback assassination (see 7 April 1977), is arrested with a large sum of money and a false passport in Utrecht, following a shoot-out.
23 Sept. 1977 The Federal Court grants a Kontaktsperre against the prisoners.
24 Sept. 1977 The kidnappers send proof that Schleyer is alive.
25 Sept. 1977 Wischnewski flies toVietnam.
28 Sept. 1977 The kidnappers send Payot proof that Schleyer is still alive.
29 Sept. 1977 Parliament votes 371 to 4, with 17 abstentions, for the application of Kontaktsperre.
The editors of Arbeiterstimme (Workers’ Voice), the newspaper of the KBW, are sentenced to six months for publishing an anonymous article entitled "Buback Shot - Enough Reasons, But What’s The Purpose" (see 1 April 1977).
30 Sept. 1977 The BKA., through Payot, states that all of the countries visited by Wischnewski declined to accept the prisoners.
Kontaktsperre passes into law.
A representative from the West German Federal Prosecutors Office flies to Paris with information “proving” defense attorney and political exile Klaus Croissant’s role in the RAF. Croissant is arrested.
1 Oct. 1977 The kidnappers inform Payot that they will not prove that Schleyer is alive again, because none of their demands have been met.
Lawyer Ardnt Müller arrested.
2 Oct. 1977 The BKA demands that the kidnappers prove that Schleyer is still alive and name a country for the prisoners to be flown to.
Volker Speitel and Rosemarie Preiss, workers in Klaus Croissant's office, arrested.
8 Oct. 1977 Payot informs the BKA that Schleyer's wife has received proof that Schleyer is still alive.
A demonstration in Bonn to protest the State's threat to illegalize the Left organizations, the KBW the KPD, and the KPD/ML.
13 Oct. 1977 Four Palestinian guerillas, the "Commando Martyr Halimeh" of the Struggle Against World Imperialism Organization, hijack a Lufthansa airliner enroute from Majorca to Paris, taking it first to Rome, then to Cyprus. They issue an initial communiqué, and an ultimatum. The GSG-9 (anti-terrorist unit) leaves Cologne for Cyprus.
Lawyer Christian Ströbele's home and office raided.
14 Oct. 1977 Payot receives a communiqué from the "Commando Martyr Halimeh" demanding the release of the eleven prisoners demanded by the "Commando Siegfried Hausner", as well as the release of two Palestinians held in Turkey, and fifteen million US dollars, to be delivered by Eberhard Schleyer. They fly first to Bahrain, then to Dubai. Wischnewski and the GSG-9 fly to Dubai.
15 Oct. 1977 Payot delivers proof that Schleyer is still alive to the BKA.
16 Oct. 1977 The Airliner leaves Dubai and flies to Aden, where the pilot is shot.
Wischnewski and the GSG-9 are refused landing in Aden and fly to Djidda.
17 Oct. 1977 The jetliner leaves Aden and flies to Mogidishu, Somalia.
Wischnewski and the GSG-9 fly to Mogidishu and are joined by a special squad.
Firma Agit-Druck, printers of the left-wing journal Info-BUG raided and two members are arrested.
Trial of 2JM member Rolf Pohle begins in Munich (see 27 Feb. 1975 and 21 July 1976).
18 Oct. 1977 The jetliner in Mogidishu is stormed and three of the four hijackers are killed, the fourth is badly injured.
Jan-Carl Raspe and Andreas Baader found shot in their cells. Baader is already dead, Raspe, fatally wounded, dies shortly after. Gudrun Ensslin is found hanged to death in her cell. Irmgard Möller found seriously injured with stab wounds. Only Möller survives.
Twenty houses raided in Cologne.
A spontaneous demonstration of between five hundred and one thousand people in Athens to protest the murders of the RAF prisoners. The President of the Athens lawyers Guild releases a letter protesting the murders. The International Investigatory Commission into the Death of Ulrike Meinhof (see 9 May 1976) demands a similar commission into the new murders.
The State publicly claims the prisoners committed suicide.
19 Oct. 1977 The DPA News Agency in Stuttgart receives the 25th and last communication from the kidnappers, saying that Schleyer has been executed. His body is found in the trunk of a green Audi 100 in the bordertown of Mülhausen, France.
Lawyers Otto Schily and Hans-Heinz Heldmann hold a press conference to denounce the State's suicide story regarding the prisoners.
20 Oct. 1977 A Müllhausen gas-station attendant tells the police he saw RAF members Christian Klar and Willi Peter Stoll in a green Audi 100 earlier in the week.
Kontaktsperre ended.
25 Oct. 1977 Julian Beck, the founder of the "Living Theater", arrested and later released on bail.
Paris Court of Appeals suspends the trial regarding the extradition of Klaus Croissant until 2 Nov. 1977.
Information indicating that two members of the anti-terrorist unit of the British Special Air Services (SAS) participated in the Mogidishu action is made public.
26 Oct. 1977 Schleyer buried.
27 Oct. 1977 The "left" daily Tageszeitung (TAZ) reprints an interview wth Helmut Ensslin, Gudrun Ensslin’s father (originally printed in Italian Left newspaper Lotta Continua) in which he claims he believes that the prisoners were murdered by a very small number of government officials.
28 Oct. 1977 Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader buried.
31 Oct. 1977 The.Provincial Court in Zweibrücken is bombed.
2 Nov. 1977 The trial begins against Anderen Buchladen (The Other Bookstore) for displaying copies of the RZ newspaper.
The extradition trial of Klaus Croissant recommences in Paris.
Fifteen lawyers from all over West Europe plead that he not be extradited.
7-13 Nov. 1977 Anti-Repression Week in Mainz.
8 Nov. 1977 Eight members of a Kaiserlautern anti-fascist group are arrested in connection with the the bombing of the Provincial Court in Zweibrücken (see 31 Oct. 1977).
12 Nov. 1977 RAF prisoner Ingrid Schubert, one of eleven demanded in exchange for Schleyer, is found hanged in her cell in Munich. Her murder sparks demonstrations and armed actions all across West Europe.
16 Nov. 1977 The French Court of Appeals rules that Klaus Croissant should be extradited to West Germany.
17 Nov. 1977 Croissant turned over to West Germany.
19 Nov. 1977 RAF prisoner Irmgard Möller begins a hungerstrike for association with RAF prisoner Verena Becker.
23 Nov. 1977
Berufsverbot laid against lawyer Spangenber, Fritz Teufel’s lawyer in the Lorenz kidnapping trial (see 27 Feb. 1975).
28 Nov. 1977
Trial begins against RAF member Verona Becker. She is charged with attempted murder, robbery, and membership in a criminal association (RAF).
4 Dec. 1977 French philosopher and anti-prison activist Michel Foucault is threatened by police with machine pistols during a visit to Merve Verlag in West Berlin.
20 Dec. 1977 2JM members, Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and Christian Möller arrested following a shoot-out with Swiss border guards at the Swiss border with France.

1978
10 Jan. 1978 RAF member Christiane Kuby arrested following a shoot-out.
13 Jan. 1978 "Commando Benno Ohnesorg"(see 2 June 1967) bombs the Supreme Court in Bern, Switzerland and promises further attacks if Kröcher-Tiedemann and Möller are extradited (see 20 Dec. 1977).
1 Feb. 1978 RAF prisoners imprisoned in Holland begin hungerstrike, demanding an end to isolation and bans on visits, free access to literature, and ultimately to be flown to a country of their choice.
9 Feb. 1978 RAF prisoners in Hamburg begin a hungerstrike, demanding POW status, association, the return of confiscated writings of Ensslin, Raspe, and Baader and an independent investigation into the murders of the RAF prisoners.
9 March 1978
Former defense attorney Klaus Croissant's trial begins - Croissant refuses to distance himself from his former clients, but, rather, publicly identified himself with them on the ideological plane.
10 March 1978 RAF prisoners in Cologne-Ossendorf begin a hungerstrike, adding the demand for the release of RAF prisoner Günter Sonneneberg (see 3 May 1977), and the end to the psychological war against the RAF.
In Bern, Switzerland, 2JM prisoners Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and Christian Möller (see 20 Dec. 1977) begin hungerstrike for end of isolation and psychological torture, citing the minimum guarantees of the Geneva Convention.
April 1978 A false issue of the A-Z Kreuzberger, West Berlin advertisement newspaper, is released full of information about the 2JM to coincide with the beginning of the Lorenz/Drenkmann trial (see 10 Nov. 1974 and 27 Feb. 1975).
10 April 1978 2JM members Ralf Reinders, Fritz Teufel, and Ronald Fritzsch assault their State-appointod lawyers.
11 April 1978 The Lorenz/Drenkmann trial begins under Judge Geus, who acquited policeman Kurras in the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg (see 02 June 1967).
27 May 1978 RAF member Stefan Wisniewski, wanted in connection with the Schleyer kidnapping (see Sept. and Oct. 1977), arrested in Paris.
Two armed women disguised as lawyers break 2JM member Till Meyer out of Moabit Prison in West Berlin. Plans to break 2JM member Andreas Vogel out at the same time are thwarted.
29 May 1978 Police raid office of lawyer Lohstoter and arrest her in connection with the Meyer breakout. She is released shortly thereafter.
31 May 1978 The RZ shoot in the leg a court appointed attorney for 2JM members and plant a bomb in the car of another one. The bomb fails to go off.
21 June 1978 2JM members Till Meyer, Gabriele Rollnick, Gudrun Strumer, and Angelika Goder are captured by heavily armed West German police in Varna, Bulgaria. Bulgarian police do not intervene and the four are flown out of Bulgaria.
30 June 1978 In Switzerland, 2JM members Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and Christian Möller are sentenced to 15 and eleven years respectively (see 20 Dec. 1977).
RAF members Brigitte Monhaupt, Sieglinde Hofmann, Peter-Jürgen Boock, and Rolf Clemens Wagner, all suspects in the Schleyer kidnapping, are arrested in Yugoslavia.
14 July 1978 A bomb explosion causes heavy damage to the Bern, Switzerland Courthouse, next to the prison where Kröcher-Tidemann and Möller are being held.
15 July 1978 Two offices of the Balkan Trading Organization are bombed in retaliation for the Bulgarian cooperation in the arrests of four 2JM members on 21 June 1978. The actions are claimed by the “International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement”.
20 Aug. 1978 Ex-RAF member Astrid Proll arrested by British police.
6 Sept. 1978 RAF member Willi Peter Stoll shot to death by police in a Düsseldorf restaurant.
25 Sept. 1978 RAF members Angelika Speitel and Michail Knoll wounded and arrested in a shoot-out with the police. One cop is killed and a third RAF member escapes with his submachine-gun.
Oct. 1978 Lawyer Kurt Groenwald is sentenced to 2 years for "supporting a criminal association" (RAF) by serving as part of an information network between imprisoned RAF members and guerillas on the outside.
15 Nov. 1978 Yugoslav authorities release arrested RAF members and fly them to an undisclosed third country (see 30 June 1978).
15 Dec. 1978
International Investigatory Commission into the Death of Ulrike Meinhof releases its finding beyond a doubt that Meinhof had been brutally raped and murdered.

1979


16 Feb. 1979
Lawyer Klaus Croissant is sentenced to two and a half years without parole and four years Berufsverbot.
31 March 1979 One hundred thousand demonstrate against a proposed nuclear waste storage area in Gorleben.
9 June 1979
RAF member, Rolf Heissler arrested.
25 June 1979
RAF "Commando Andreas Baader" attempts to assassinate NATO Chief of staff, US General Alexander Haig and issue a communiqué.
24 Dec. 1979 Rudi Dutschke dies as a result of complications sustained when he was shot in the head on 11 April 1968.

1980

4 March 1980 America House in Hamburg occupied by supporters of the political prisoners, demanding association in large groups for the prisoners and integration into normal prison conditions for RAF prisoner Brigitte Asdonsk, now in prison for 10 years.
3 May 1980 Five thousand occupy the nuclear waste storage facility in Gorleben and declare the Free Republic of Wendland.
6 May 1980 2JM member Ingrid Barabas, RAF member Sieglinde Hoffman,and supporters Karin Kamp-Munruchow and.Regine Nicolai arrested in Paris.
Militant demonstration in Breman against the swearing-in exercise for young soldiers.
2 June 1980 2JM releases a communiqué announcing their dissolution and merger with the RAF.
26 July 1980 RAF members Juliane Plambeck (ex-2JM) and Wolfgang Beer killed in a car crash.
9 Sept. 1980 West Berlin Housing Board announces that there are 225 apartments being squatted in the city.
12 Dec. 1980 A squatters’ demonstration in West Berlin evolves into a major riot.


1981
1 Feb. 1981 Dieter Faber arrested in Kaiselautern and charged with “supporting a criminal association” (RAF).
6 Feb. 1981 RAF prisoners begin a hungerstrike demanding association and the release of Günter Sonnenberg (see 3 May 1977).
13 March 1981 First national squatters' congress in Münster.
10 April 1981 Karl Grosser arrested in Heidelberg and charged with "supporting a criminal association" (RAF).
12 May 1981 162 new houses occupied by squatters in West Berlin.
26 May 1981 A day of street-fighting follows police raids against squats in West Berlin.
3 June 1981 Barbara Augustin arrested with a car-load of explosives at the Swiss border in Rheinau.
31 Aug. 1981 RAF "Commando Sigurd Debus" bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Airforce in Ramstein, and issue a communiqué.
3 Sept. 1981 Sixty thousand demonstrate against the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig to WestBerlin.
15 Sept. 1981 RAF "Commando Gudrun Ensslin" attacks and narrowly misses killing the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, General Frederick Kroesen. A communiqué is released regarding this assassination attempt.
21 Sept. 1981 The trial of RAF member Sieglinde Hoffman, charged in connecttion with the execution of Jürgen Ponto (see 30 July 1977).
10 Oct. 1981 In the largest demonstration in West German history, two hundred and sixty five thousand march in anti-war demonstration in Bonn.
16 Oct. 1981 Helga Roos is arrested for "supporting a criminal association" (RAF), in connection with the attack on Kroesen (see 15 Sept. 1981).

1982
7 March 1982 Rote Zora firebombs Schering for its role in sterilization programmes in the Third World.
May 1982 The RAF releases a major theoretical text, re-evaluating their praxis and opening a new phase in their discussion with the legal movement. This paper, The Guerilla, The Resistance and the Anti-Imperialist Front, calls for a broad-based front involving the guerilla, the semi-legal movement, and the legal anti-imperialist movement, becomes known as the "May Paper".
11 June 1982 A massive demonstration in Bonn against the NATO Summit and President Reagan's visit to West Berlin. A split develops around strategy and tactics, between the "mainstream" Left and the anti-imperialists and autonomists.
31 Oct. 1982 2JM prisoner Klaus Viehmann begins a hunger- and thirst-strike to protest prison conditions.
16 Nov. 1982 RAF members Adelheid Schulz and Christian Klar arrested and charged in connection with all RAF actions from 1977 until 1981.
14 Dec. 1982 The neo-nazi Hexel-Hepp Group bombs the U.S. army base in Hesse. Two GIs are seriously injured. Many people on the Left originally applaud the action, believing it was carried out by the RZ. Both the RZ and RAF prisoner, Christian Klar, issues statements pointing out operational indicators that the action came from the Right and criticize the superficiality of the Left’s analysis of the action and confusions between anti-americanism and anti-imperialism.

1983
Feb. 1983 Rote Zora attacks "Muller’s" porn shop during carnival.
1 March 1983 RAF member Gisela Dutzi arrested in Darmstadt.
8 March 1983 Rote Zora firebombs the car of a woman-trader in Cologne and firebombs the Philipino Consulate in Bonn.
10 April 1983 Inge Krobs arrested in Frankfurt and charged with “supporting a criminal association” (RAF).
3 July 1983 RAF members Helmut Pohl, Ingrid Jakobsmeir, Barbara Ernst, Volker Staub, Stefan Frey, and Christa Eckes arrested in Frankfurt, after they accidentally discharge a gun in a house.
9 July 1983 Heidi Hutt arrested and charged with "supporting a criminal association" (RAF), in connection with the group arrested on 3 July 1984.
18 Nov. 1983 RAF prisoner Roland Mayer begins a hungerstrike in Bruschsal for free access to information and visits.
16 Dec. 1983 Four people involved in the movement against the NATO runway Startbahn West, arrested in Frankfurt and charged with for forming a "criminal (terrorist) association".

1984
18 Dec. 1984 RAF "Commando Jan-Carl Raspe" attempts to bomb the SHAPE School, the NATO Officers’ School in Oberammergua. The bomb is discovered and defused.
Dec. 1984 RAF prisoners begin a hungerstrike, demanding association. Two statements are released, a shorter Hungerstrike Statement and a longer one Regarding the Association of Political Prisoners aimed towards the movement.

1985
January 1985
RAF issue a joint statement along with the French anti-imperialist guerilla organization Action Directe, For the Unity of Revolutionaries in West Europe.
20 Jan. 1985 Johannes Thimme killed and Claudia Wannersdorfer seriously injured trying to bomb the "Association for the Development of Air and Space Industries" in Stuttgart.
1 Feb. 1985 RAF “Commando Patsy O’Hara”assassinates arms manufacturer Ernst Zimmerman, issuing a communiqué at the same time.
mid-Feb. 1985
RAF prisoners call off their hungerstrike, issuing a statement to this effect.
15 March 1985 A Youth Center and six homes are raided in Hannover, allegedly in connection with a RAF support network.
April 1985
A first Interview with Comrades from the RAF is released.
13 April 1985 Rote Zora bombs a genetic technology research center in the Industrial Park in Heidelberg.
1 May 1985 Fifteen people arrested and charged with "supporting a criminal association", for carrying a banner with a painting of RAF member Ulrike Meinhof (see 9 May 1976) and the slogan "freedom for political prisoners".
18 May 1985 Two cops visit Paul Moussault, the publisher of the Dutch newspaper De knipselkrant, and question him regarding the RAF prisoners' hungerstrike (see Dec. 1984) and the hundreds of actions it inspired in West Germany, as well as the Cellules Communistes Combatantes (CCC), a Belgian communist guerilla group.
3 July 1985 Ingrid Barabas (former 2JM) (see 6 May 1980) and Mareille Schmegner arrested and charged as RAF members living legally.
8 Aug. 1985 RAF "Commando George Jackson" bombs the U.S. Airforce Base in Frankfurt, releasing a first communiqué regarding this action.
18 Aug. 1985 Rote Zora bombs the Max Plant Institute inconnection with its role in the genetic manipulation of plants in the Third World.
25 Aug. 1985 In a communiqué # 2 Regarding the Action Against the Rhein-Main Air Base and the Shooting of Edward Pimental,
RAF claims responsibility for the killing of U.S. GI Edward Pimental, whose ID card they used to gain access to the Air Base for the 8 August 1985 action.
Sept. 1985 RAF releases an interview in which they explain the Air Base action and the killing of Pimental, which has been the source of much criticism and controversy.
28 Sept. 1985 Anti-nazi activist Günter Sare killed when he is knocked down and run over by a water cannon during a demonstration against a meeting of the neo-nazi NPD party in Frankfurt. This sparks weeks of actions and riots throughout West Germany.
11 Oct. 1985
The left daily, the TAZ, interviews Christian Lochte, the head of the Hamburg Verfassungsschutz (intelligence gathering police service).
14 Oct. 1985 TAZ informs the Hamburg Hafenstrasse squat about the interview and allows them to read it in whole, but won’t let them copy it.
16 Oct. 1985 TAZ prints an abbreviated version of the interview with Lochte.
29 Oct. 1985 Members of the Hafenstrasse squat smash the TAZ office, seriously damaging the premises and equipment. They claim that it is in retaliation for TAZ cooperation with Lochte and the Verfassangsschutz.
20 Nov. 1985 Trial begins against Irene Klar, the first relative of a political prisoner ever charged with "supporting a criminal association" (RAF).

1986
Jan. 1986 RAF releases An Die, Die Mit Uns Kämpfen (“To Those Who Struggle With Us”), a final assessment of the 8 August 1985 Air Base action and the killing of Pimental, and a response to all of the criticisms it raised.
13 Jan. 1986 RAF member Annelie Backer arrested in Hannover. Angela Senftleber and Heidi Hutt arrested in Frankfurt and charged with "supporting a criminal association". As well there are a series of raids in Frankfurt.
31 Jan. – 2 Feb. 1986 "Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist Conference" in Frankfurt draws thousands from all over West Europe and around the world.
March 1986 All over West Germany there are actions against the Reinhard Hauff film, Stammheim, based on the Stefan Aust book, Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex. Both are seen as counter-insurgency pieces.
24 April 1986 Autonomen Zellen (AZ) firebomb the NATO pipeline.
9 July 1986 RAF "Commando Mara Cagol" assassinate Karl Heinz Beckurts, the President of Siemens and a key figure in SDI production (Star Wars), releasing a communiqué at the same time.
August 1986 Letters are sent to about fifty people in Holland, encouraging them to betray Paul Moussant’s connections to the RAF (see 18 May 1985).
2 Aug. 1986 RAF member Eva Haule-Frimpong and supporters Luitigard Hornstein and Christian Kluth are arrested in Rüsselheim.
5 Aug. 1986 Rote Zora bombs the Humangenetischer Institute (Human Genetics Institute) and announces the beginning of a campaign against gene technology.
13-14 Aug. 1986 Three arrests in Duisburg in connection with armed actions of the growing semi-legal anti-imperialist movement.
2 Sept. 1986 Paul Mossault arrested and questioned by cops (see 18 May 1985 and August 1986).
10 Oct. 1986
RAF “Commando Ingrid Schubert” assassinates diplomat Gerold von Braunmöhl, releasing a communiqué explaining his role in imperialist strategy, particalarly regarding the Middle East.
29 Oct. 1986 The Kiefernstrasse squat in Düsseldorf, former home of Luitigard Hornstein and Christian Kluth (see 2 Aug. 1986) is raided in connection with RAF activities.
Dec. 1986 / Jan. 1987 RZ campaign against companies with business ties to South Africa.

1987
Dec. 1986 / Jan. 1987 RZ campaign against companies with business ties to South Africa.
15 Feb. 1987 AZ sabotages U.S. Army trains in Achim.
16 March 1987 RAF prisoner Rolf Clemens Wagner sentenced to life in connecttion with the Schleyer execution (see Sept.-Oct. 1977).
9 April 1987
Office and home of Paul Moussault raided (see 18 May 1985, Aug. 1986, 2 Sept. 1986).
June 1987 Interview the AZ released.
17 Aug. 1987 Rote Zora firebombs nine branches of the Adler Department Store in support of women striking in Adler’s Korean factories. Adler subsequently settles with the Korean women, admitting the firebombings had a role in their decision.
2 Nov. 1987 Two cops shot and killed at a demonstration against the NATO runway in Frankfurt, Startbahn West.
3 Nov. 1987 Andreas Eichler arrested and charged with the murder of the cops at the Startbahn West demonstration. He claims innocence.
11 Nov. 1987
Frank Hoffmann accused in connection with the Startbahn West shooting, disappears into the underground.
11 Nov. 1987
TAZ reports receiving a letter from Frank Hoffman. He claims he is innocent, but knows that he could not get a fair trial.
21 Nov. 1987 Residents of the Kiefernstrasse squat in Düsseldorf, Andrea Sievering and Eric Prauss are arrested and charged with "supporting a criminal association" (RAF). Their case is joined with that of Luitigard Hornstein and Christian Kluth. All four are charged with a car-bombing against Dormier.
Thirty three homes and offices raided in connection with Rote Zora. Ulla Penselin is charged with membership in the Rote Zora.
20 Dec. 1987 Ingrid Strobl arrested and charged with membership in the RZ and Rote Zora. She is a journalist with the feminist journal Emma.

1988
Jan. 1988 Andreas Semisch, one of five people by now arrested in connection with the Startbahn West shooting (see 2 Nov. 1987), releases a letter proclaiming his innocence, his solidarity with all other political prisoners, particularly the prisoners from the 18 &
20 Dec. 1987 arrests, and his solidarity with hungerstriking Action Directe prisoners in France.
Sept. 1988
RAF release a joint statement along with Italy's Red Brigades.
20 Sept 1988
RAF "Commando Khaled Aker" attempt to assassinate Secretary of State for the Minister of Finance, Hans Tietmeyer, but their automatic pistol jams. A communiqué is released.

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