Christian Klar (born 20 May 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a leading member of the second generation
Red Army FactionThe Red Army Faction , shortened to RAF and in its early stages commonly known as Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang, was one of postwar West Germany's most violent and prominent groups who advocated communist-inspired terrorism...
(RAF) between the 1970s and 80s. He had been incarcerated since 1982 in a
BruchsalBruchsal is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau, approximately 20 km Northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany...
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
, but was released on 19th of December 2008, after serving over 26 years of his life sentence.
The son of a
teacherIn education, a teacher is a person who educates others. A teacher who educates an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor....
and
vice-principalIn larger school systems, a principal is often assisted by someone known as a vice-principal or assistant principal. Unlike the principal, the vice-principal does not have quite the decision making authority that the principal carries...
, Klar attended school in
LorrachLörrach is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss border. It is the capital of the district Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. The biggest industry is the chocolate factory Milka...
, and in 1972 graduated from a school in
EttlingenEttlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is about 8km south of the city of Karlsruhe. After Bruchsal, Ettlingen is the second largest city in the Karlsruhe-County.-Geography:...
.
Christian Klar (born 20 May 1952 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a leading member of the second generation
Red Army FactionThe Red Army Faction , shortened to RAF and in its early stages commonly known as Baader-Meinhof Group or Gang, was one of postwar West Germany's most violent and prominent groups who advocated communist-inspired terrorism...
(RAF) between the 1970s and 80s. He had been incarcerated since 1982 in a
BruchsalBruchsal is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau, approximately 20 km Northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany...
prisonA prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail , although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility...
, but was released on 19th of December 2008, after serving over 26 years of his life sentence.
Early life
The son of a
teacherIn education, a teacher is a person who educates others. A teacher who educates an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor....
and
vice-principalIn larger school systems, a principal is often assisted by someone known as a vice-principal or assistant principal. Unlike the principal, the vice-principal does not have quite the decision making authority that the principal carries...
, Klar attended school in
LorrachLörrach is a city in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss border. It is the capital of the district Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. The biggest industry is the chocolate factory Milka...
, and in 1972 graduated from a school in
EttlingenEttlingen is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is about 8km south of the city of Karlsruhe. After Bruchsal, Ettlingen is the second largest city in the Karlsruhe-County.-Geography:...
. He went on to study
HistoryHistory is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it often attempts to investigate objectively the patterns...
and
PhilosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
in the University of Heidelberg, and became, for awhile, a member of a young democratic movement.
Around 1973 he moved to a
KarlsruheKarlsruhe is a city in the south west of Germany, in the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border....
flat with his girlfriend
Adelheid SchulzAdelheid "Heidi" Schulz was a member of the West German terrorist Red Army Faction.-Early life:Having trained as a nurse, Schulz moved to Karlsruhe in the early 1970s and took up residence in a flat with Günter Sonnenberg, Knut Folkerts and her boyfriend Christian Klar – who would all at a later...
, Gunter Sonnenberg and Knut Folkerts (who would all subsequently become RAF members) and in 1974 he took part in the occupation of the
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
Amnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international secular non-governmental organisation which defines its mission as "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated." Founded in London in 1961, AI...
offices protesting against the detention of RAF prisoners.
Militancy
Around 1976, Klar joined the RAF and soon became a leading member of the second generation. In November 1982 he was arrested at arms depot in
FriedrichsruhFriedrichsruh is a district in the municipality of Aumühle, Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany.- History :After the victory over France, Otto von Bismarck was awarded the Sachsenwald. He ordered to turn an inn near the Hamburg-Berlin railway line into a manor and called it Friedrichsruh. Some of...
. Similarly to
Brigitte MohnhauptBrigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt is a German terrorist associated with the second generation of Red Army Faction members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective...
, he was given a collective sentence for all the major RAF crimes since 1977. These included:
- The April 1977 murder of Siegfried Buback
Siegfried Buback was the chief federal prosecutor from 1974-1977 for the Bundesgerichtshof, the highest court of appeals in Germany....
, his driver and his bodyguard.
- The July 1977 murder of Jurgen Ponto
Jürgen Ponto, was a German banker and chairman of the Dresdner Bank board of directors. Previously, he had worked as a lawyer...
.
- The kidnap and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer
Hanns-Martin Schleyer was a German manager and employer and industry representative, serving as President of the two influential organizations Confederation of German Employers' Associations and Federation of German Industries...
; the murder of his driver and three bodyguards.
He was also charged with;:
- Attempted murder of a Swiss border guard and a motorist in Riehen
Riehen is a municipality in the canton of Basel-Stadt in Switzerland. Together with the city of Basel and Bettingen, Riehen is one of three municipalities in the canton....
, January 1977.
- Attempted rocket
A rocket or rocket vehicle is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust by the reaction of the rocket to the ejection of a jet of fast moving fluid exhaust from a rocket engine. Chemical rockets create their exhaust by the combustion of rocket propellant...
attack on the offices of the Federal ProsecuterThe Federal Prosecutor General, in German Generalbundesanwalt - Generalbundesanwältin , is the federal prosecutor of Germany, representing the Federal Republic of Germany at the Bundesgerichtshof, the federal court of justice. The office of the Federal Prosecutor General is located in Karlsruhe...
, in August 1977.
- A Zurich
Zürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne...
bank raid, murder of a bystander, and attempted murder of a policeman, in November 1979.
- An assassination
An Assassination is the targeted killing of a public figure.Assassinations may be prompted by ideological, political, or military reasons. Additionally, assassins may be motivated by financial gain, revenge, personal public recognition, or mental illness....
attempt on U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
GeneralA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
Frederick KroesenFrederick James Kroesen, Jr. is a retired United States Army four star general and was the Commanding General of the Seventh United States Army and the commander of NATO Central Army Group from 1979 to 1983, and Commanding General, United States Army Forces Command from 1976 to 1978...
using an RPG-7The RPG-7 is a widely-produced, portable, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket propelled grenade weapon. Originally the RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and now manufactured by the Bazalt company...
anti-tank rocket, on 15 September 1981.
Imprisonment
Klar was imprisoned from 1982 to December 2008 . In early 2007 he petitioned
BundespräsidentBundespräsident is the German language title for:* The President of Austria * The President of Germany...
Horst KöhlerHorst Köhler is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union, and the current President of Germany...
to be pardoned, but was denied. He may have damaged his chance at a pardon by making
anti-capitalismAnti-capitalism describes a wide variety of movements, ideas, and attitudes which oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to completely replace capitalism with another system....
comments in January 2007.