The Red Army Faction

Red Army Faction

The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...

 (RAF) operated in Germany from the late 1960s to 1998, committing numerous crimes, especially in the autumn of 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as "German Autumn

German Autumn

The German Autumn was a set of events in late 1977, associated with the kidnapping and murder of industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations and the Federation of German Industries , by the Red Army Faction , and the hijacking of the...

". The RAF was founded in 1970 by Andreas Baader

Andreas Baader

Andreas Bernd Baader was one of the first leaders of the German left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction, also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.- Life :...

, Gudrun Ensslin

Gudrun Ensslin

Gudrun Ensslin was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction . After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF...

, Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Marie Meinhof was a German left-wing militant. She co-founded the Red Army Faction in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine Konkret. She was arrested in 1972, and eventually charged with numerous murders and the formation of a criminal...

, Horst Mahler

Horst Mahler

Horst Mahler is a former German lawyer and advocate of radical ideologies. He once was an extreme-left militant, a founding member of the Red Army Faction. Subsequently he became a Maoist and later shifted to the extreme-right. He was for a time a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany...

, and others, and the first generation of the organisation was commonly known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang".

The RAF was responsible for 34 deaths, including many secondary targets such as chauffeurs and bodyguards and many injuries in its almost 30 years of activity.