Today’s big issue is the NSU trial. Crime committed by right wing extremists is now focused by governmental authorities. The last terror organization with such medial attention was the Red Army Faction - a left antifascist group which performed its assaults during the late 60’s and 70’s. They fought against American ideologies and the Western capitalism. Although their assaults were very ruthless and brutal, they had many sympathizers, especially students. One reason was their medial appearance and popularity.
Today’s big issue is the NSU trial. Crime committed by right wing extremists is now focused by governmental authorities. The last terror organization with such medial attention was the Red Army Faction - a left antifascist group which performed its assaults during the late 60’s and 70’s. They fought against American ideologies and the Western capitalism. Although their assaults were very ruthless and brutal, they had many sympathizers, especially students. One reason was their medial appearance and popularity.
RAF’s history
Within my essay I want to focus the activities and assaults of the “first generation”, because they were the cause for later terrorism committed by the RAF.
The initial situation was Benno Ohnesorg’s (a student) death during a student-protest against the visit of Persia’s shah. He was shot by a policeman and militant groups gained more influence. Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin (and several others) set fire in two big malls in Frankfurt. They were caught only a few days later and Baader was sentenced to a three year penalty.
On 14th May 1970 he was allowed to meet Ulrike Meinhof, a popular journalist, in a library to work with her on Meinhof’s book. Auxiliaries could extricate Baader under usage of weapons and they could escape. Authorities did not know that Meinhof cooperated with the RAF at this point. The group needed money urgently, thus they robbed several banks and stole cars. The four heads of the Red Army Faction Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and Mahler were working together from that moment.
In 1971 Meinhof published her proclamation “The concept urban guerilla”. She explained that the armed fight against the state is necessary to defeat the capitalism and imperialism.[1]
To protest against the Vietnam War the RAF made bomb assaults on the German US-Army’s headquarters in Heidelberg and Frankfurt. These terror acts killed four American soldiers and many were wounded. But targets were not just American, but they also attacked a police station in Augsburg and a judge’s car, who organized the investigation against the RAF. Another target was the Axel-Springer-Verlag, a publishing house, which printed several articles against the student-movement and the RAF. These pro-governmental stories were published in the BILD-journal.
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[1] Christine Buth, 2009, RAF, http://www.planet-wissen.de/politik_geschichte/verbrechen/raf/
- Quote paper
- Martin Sandner (Author), 2013, The RAF And Its Influence On Society, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/262735