Terrorism (RAF) in the FRG

• During the 1970s to 1990s, terrorist activity became one of the biggest problems facing FRG society. Successive waves of the Red Army Fraction (RAF), a radical LW group, became involved in a series of terrorist activities. They were also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, after the surnames of the 2 original leading members: Ulrike Meinholf and Andreas Baader.
• The membership of the RAF consisted on young, middle class, educated West Germans who were disillusioned with the FRG's political system. They believed the intellectual argument was useless against the forces of the establishment and direct action was necessary.
• At first, their activism consisted of sabotage and arson - Baader was initially arrested after fire-bombing a department store in Frankfurt in April 1968. After he was freed in May 1970 by fellow members, the group began to direct their violence against people rather than property, using things such as bombings and assassinations.
• The RAF, like other groups associated with the New Left, wanted to achieve the destruction of consumerism, and end to the Vietnam War and the demise of the FRG itself - although they never explained what they'd replace it with.
• Until they began killing people, the RAF enjoyed some public support. Opinion polls showed around 15% of the public had sympathy with their goals (or at least in terms of social justice and equality). However, when they shifted their tactics, their support collapsed and the vast majority of Germans supported the government's quest to defeat the group.
• RAF activities in the 1970s were known as the German Autumn. They killed more than 28 people and maimed countless others in a bombing campaign. They also robbed over 30 banks to finance their activities and conducted kidnappings and assassinations of key establishment figures as well as targeting German and US military personnel.
• Although the main leaders were arrested in 1972, they were able to radicalise fellow prison inmates and their arrests appeared to have little effect on the activities of the RAF. Meinhof and Baader died in custody in controversial circumstances in the mid-1970s, making themselves martyrs, serving to inspire others. Successive generations of radicals continued terror activities until 1998.
• The RAF's brutality and readiness to take lives scared people, causing them to support successive governments taking what could be seen as ruthless measures to overcome them. These included laws which appeared to be anti-democratic. The FRG authorities employed highly effective counter-terrorism forces, such as GSG9, who successfully stormed a hijacked airplane in Mogadishu in October 1977, releasing all the hostages.
• Many Germans felt under siege, at a time when there was also a resurgence of activity on the far right.