Read The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History Online
Authors: J Smith
February 8, 1979
Werner Hoppe, whose health has been seriously damaged by years of isolation, is released from prison on compassionate grounds.
February 16, 1979
The Stuttgart LG sentences attorney Klaus Croissant to two and a half years in prison and four years of
Berufsverbot
for supporting a terrorist organization.
March 31, 1979
Days after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States, 100,000 people demonstrate in Hannover against the Gorleben nuclear waste disposal facility.
April 20, 1979
More than seventy prisoners participate in the seventh collective hunger strike, demanding the end of isolation, the application of the minimum guarantees of the Geneva Convention, and the release of Günter Sonnenberg.
May 2, 1979
The Hamburg OLG sentences RAF member Christine Kuby to life in prison.
May 4, 1979
RAF member Elisabeth von Dyck is shot in the back by the police in Nuremberg, dying instantly.
Margaret Thatcher becomes Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom.
May 31, 1979
The Heidelberg LG sentences Irmgard Möller to life in prison for her role in the RAF's May 1972 offensive.
June 1979
The
Internationale Kommission zum Schutz der Gefangenen
(IKSG) evolves out of several parallel prisoner support initiatives, including the International Investigatory Commission into the Death of Ulrike Meinhof, the remnants of the Committees Against Torture, and the FRG Relatives Committee. The IKSG will fill the void left by the IVK, which had essentially been forced to disband by the repression that followed the German Autumn.
June 6, 1979
Monika Berberich, Angelika Goder, Gabriele Rollnik, and Gudrun Stürmer, announce they are escalating to a thirst strike, calling for Irmgard Möller to be immediately granted association.
June 9, 1979
RAF member Rolf HeiÃler is shot in the head without warning and arrested in Frankfurt.
June 15, 1979
Amnesty International contacts the Baden Württemberg and federal authorities about reports that the hunger strike has reached a critical stage for a number of prisoners, especially Irmgard Möller.
June 25, 1979
The RAF's Andreas Baader Commando attempts to assassinate the NATO supreme allied commander, U.S. General Alexander Haig.
June 26, 1979
Prisoners from the RAF call off their hunger strike.
July 17, 1979
President Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua is overthrown by the Sandinistas and flees to Miami, where he is denied entry by President Jimmy Carter. He finally receives asylum in Paraguay.
September 25, 1979
RAF member Helmut Pohl is released from prison.
November 19, 1979
RAF members Christian Klar, Rolf Clemens Wagner, Henning Beer, and Peter-Jürgen Boock rob a bank in Zurich of an estimated 548,000 Swiss francs. Making their getaway, they shoot two police officers, and passer-by Edith Kletzhändler is killed by a ricocheting bullet. Another civilian is shot. Rolf Clemens Wagner is arrested in Zurich later the same day.
November 30, 1979
RAF member Angelika Speitel is sentenced to life in prison.
December 10, 1979
NATO agrees to deploy medium-range Cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe.
December 24, 1979
Former student leader and Green Party founder Rudi Dutschke drowns in his bath in Ã
rhus, Denmark, after suffering a seizure as a result of brain damage sustained when he was shot in the head on April 11, 1968.
Soviet troops enter Afghanistan.
An interview with RZ representatives addressing the antinuclear struggle is published.
January 4, 1980
U.S. President Carter suspends ratification of SALT II.
January 23, 1980
U.S. President Carter declares the oil crisis to be the “moral equivalent of war” and expounds the “Carter Doctrine,” declaring that “Any attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”
January 31, 1980
On the basis of testimony supplied by former RAF supporters Volker Speitel and Hans-Joachim Dellwo, the Stuttgart OLG sentences attorneys Arndt Müller and Armin Newerla to four years and eight months and three years and six months respectively for smuggling weapons and explosives into Stammheim.
February 1980
Christine Kuby, Christa Eckes, Inga Hornstein, Anne Reiche, and Brigitte Asdonk are all strip searched and moved to a new high-security unit in Lübeck-Lauerhof. The women respond by going on hunger strike, demanding their transfer out of the dead wing.
February 6, 1980
The America House in Frankfurt is occupied in solidarity with the prisoners from the RAF.
March 4, 1980
The roof of the America House in Hamburg is occupied in solidarity with the prisoners, especially the women at Lübeck-Lauerhof.
May 5, 1980
2JM members Ingrid Barabaà and Regina Nicolai, RAF member Sieglinde Hofmann, and two other Germans (Karola Magg and Karin Kamp-Münnichow) are arrested in Paris. They are immediately placed in strict isolation in Fleury-Mérogis prison.
May 6, 1980
Massive rioting occurs against a military swearing-in ceremony in the city of Bremen.
May 16, 1980
The America House in West Berlin is occupied in solidarity with the prisoners from the RAF.
June 1980
Der Minister und der Terrorist
(The Minister and the Terrorist), a book-length conversation between Federal Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum (FDP) and former RAF member Horst Mahler is released.
June 2, 1980
The 2JM members remaining at large release a communiqué announcing the organization's dissolution and merger with the RAF. Some 2JM members in prison will release a document distancing themselves from this fusion later in the month, but the 2JM will never claim responsibility for another action.
July 11, 1980
Ingrid BarabaÃ, Karin Kamp-Münnichow, Karola Magg, Regina Nicolai, and Sieglinde Hofmann are extradited from France to the FRG.
July 12, 1980
The Paris offices of the
Bundesbahn,
the West German railway company, are bombed in protest against the previous day's extraditions. Jean Paul Gérard, Michel Lapeyre, and Frédéric Oriach of the NAPAP are arrested shortly afterwards.
July 25, 1980
RAF members Juliane Plambeck, formerly of the 2JM, and Wolfgang Beer are killed in a traffic accident outside of the town of Unterriexingen.
July 31, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Knut Folkerts to life in prison for three murders.
August 25, 1980
Sixteen-year-old Olaf Ritzmann is hit by a tram while fleeing a police attack on a demonstration against an appearance by CSU leader Franz Josef Strauà in Hamburg. He will die of his injuries four days later.
September 1980
The first meeting of Women Against Imperialist War is held in Hamburg.
September 5, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF members Christoph Wackernagel and Gert Schneider to fifteen years in prison for attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
September 12, 1980
NATO generals seize control of Turkey in a coup d'état. Over 600,000 people will soon be arrested, most will be tortured, and hundreds will be sentenced to death.
September 17, 1980
A Sandinista commando assassinates ousted President Anastasio Somoza in Paraguay, where he had received asylum.
September 26, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Rolf Clemens Wagner to life in prison.
October 1980
Susanne Albrecht, Werner Lotze, Christine Dümlein, Monika Helbing, Ekkehard von Seckendorff-Gudent, Sigrid Sternebeck, Ralf Baptist Friedrich, and Silke Maier-Witt leave the RAF. They are provided with new identities and sanctuary in East Germany.
NATO Review
publishes an article by Paul Johnson, an advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, declaring that governments must not concede “to terrorist convicts the privileged status of political prisoners,” or yield “to demands⦠for official enquiries, or international investigations, into alleged ill-treatment of terrorist suspects or convicts.”
October 5, 1980
Helmut Schmidt is reelected chancellor; Social Democrats continue to rule West Germany in coalition with the Free Democratic Party.
November 4, 1980
Republican Ronald Reagan wins the U.S. presidential election.
December 12, 1980
A squatters' demonstration in West Berlin evolves into a major riot, with over one hundred arrests.
At some point during the year, Verena Becker begins cooperating with the
Verfassungsschutz.
She will inform the secret police that Knut Folkerts could not have been the shooter in the Buback assassination, information that remains suppressed for decades.
January 19, 1981
Lawyer Hans-Christian Ströbele receives a suspended sentence for supporting a terrorist organization.
January 20, 1981
Ronald Reagan is sworn in as president of the United States. Alexander Haig will be his first secretary of state.
January 22, 1981
RAF defector Peter-Jürgen Boock is arrested in Hamburg.
February 6âApril 16, 1981
More than 100 political prisoners participate in the eighth collective hunger strike of prisoners from the RAF, demanding association, treatment in accord with the Geneva Convention, and the release of seriously ill prisoner Günter Sonnenberg.
March 1âOctober 3, 1981
Irish Republican political prisoners embark upon a hunger strike. By the time it is called off, ten of their number will be dead.
March 4, 1981
Members of the FRG Relatives Committee occupy the offices of
Spiegel
magazine, in an attempt to force the media to begin reporting on the hunger strike.
March 8, 1981
On International Women's Day, Women Against Imperialist War march on Lübeck-Lauerhof prison in support of the prisoners.
March 13, 1981
The first national squatters' congress takes place in Münster.
March 15, 1981
A group of West German doctors signs an open letter supporting the prisoners' demands and condemning isolation conditions for political prisoners and force-feeding.
March 23â29, 1981
During Women's Week, 300 women march on NDR, a public broadcaster, to call attention to the hunger strike.
March 31, 1981
Following public disagreements with Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum, Horst Herold resigns as head of the BKA.
April 16, 1981
The hunger strike is called off in response to a government guarantee that prison conditions will be improved. Hours later the news comes through that Sigurd Debus, a political prisoner participating in the hunger strike, died of a brain hemorrhage as a result of being force-fed. As news of his death reaches the streets, rioting breaks out in West Berlin. There will be numerous retaliatory bombings and protests throughout the FRG in the weeks to come.
August 4, 1981
French police officer Francis Violleau is shot and seriously injured in a confrontation with Inge Viett in Paris. Viett is one of the 2JM members who had joined the RAF when the organizations fused.
August 26âSeptember 19, 1981
The Tuwat Conference is held in West Berlin.
August 31, 1981
The RAF's Sigurd Debus Commando bombs the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force
in Ramstein injuring twenty people and causing 7.2 million DM in damage.
September 13, 1981
A demonstration against Alexander Haig in West Berlin escalates to serious rioting.
September 15, 1981
The RAF's Gudrun Ensslin Commando attacks the car carrying the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, General Frederick Kroesen, with a bazooka. The armor-plated vehicle survives the attack. Kroesen and his wife suffer permanent damage to their hearing.
September 21, 1981
The trial of RAF member Sieglinde Hofmann, charged in connection with the assassination of Jürgen Ponto, begins.
September 22, 1981
During an action to clear squatted houses in West Berlin, police chase protesters into the street, where one squatter, Klaus-Jürgen Rattay, is hit by a municipal bus and killed.
Sixteen houses are occupied on KiefernstraÃe in Düsseldorf. These will become a major hub of activity for anti-imps in the years to come. Also around this time, the HafenstraÃe squats are established in Hamburg; these will in time become an important
Autonomen
stronghold.
October 16, 1981
Alleged RAF supporter Helga Roos is arrested in connection with the attack on Kroesen.
November 2, 1981
The occupation at the planned site of the Startbahn West expansion is violently cleared by police.