Read The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1 Online
Authors: J. Smith
May 12, 1967
Kommune 1 is expelled from the SDS.
May 20, 1967
The Republican Club, a meeting place for leftists, opens in West Berlin. Horst Mahler is a founding member.
May 24, 1967
Two days after a fire levels a Brussels department store, Kommune 1 members pass out a leaflet suggesting that burning department stores might not be such a bad way to advance the revolution. Fritz Teufel and Rainer Langhans are arrested and charged with inciting arson.
June 2, 1967
Student Benno Ohnesorg is shot and killed by undercover police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras during a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran to West Berlin. Initially acquitted, Kurras is retried, convicted and spends four months in jail. He is allowed to retain his job.
June 3–4, 1967
Protests of the killing of Benno Ohnesorg on June 2 are held at almost every university in West Germany. Violent clashes with the police occur in Hamburg.
June 5–11, 1967
Israel attacks Egyptian forces in Sinai and the Gaza Strip—Syria and Jordan soon enter the conflict in support of Egypt. Nevertheless, due to its greater military capacity, Israel routes all three Arab armies, in what is known as the Six Day
War. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee the newly Occupied Territories, finding their way to neighboring Jordan. The Six Day War establishes anti-Zionism as a key element of the West German left.
September 5, 1967
At an SDS congress Rudi Dutschke and Hans-Jürgen Krahl raise the idea of the urban guerilla. This is the first time the idea has been openly discussed in the SDS or the APO.
October 21, 1967
10,000 people demonstrate in West Berlin against the Vietnam War on the same day as similar protests take place around the world. There are clashes with police in West Berlin. Following the demonstration, Andreas Baader and Astrid Proll lay a bomb at America House. It fails to detonate due to a technical failure.
1968
January 30, 1968
The Tet Offensive begins in Vietnam. The offensive, which lasts two months, is a turning point in the war, forcing the U.S. into a defensive position from which it will never recover.
February 1–7, 1968
A week of violent student demonstrations against the Vietnam War sweeps West Germany.
February 2, 1968
At the Springer Tribunal at the Critical University, Holger Meins shows a film about how to make a molotov cocktail. The Springer Press refers to the Tribunal as an act of fascist terror, comparing students to Hitler’s SA.
February 17–18, 1968
The International Congress on Vietnam is held at the Technical University in West Berlin. 12,000 people attend the closing demonstration.
February 21, 1968
A demonstration organized by the West Berlin Senate, the Federation of Trade Unions, and the Springer Press against the student movement and in support of the U.S. war against Vietnam draws 80,000. Many participants carry placards reading “Rudi Dutschke: Public Enemy Number One” and “Berlin Must Not Become Saigon.”
April 1968
Georg von Rauch, Michael “Bommi” Baumann, and others form the Wieland Kommune in West Berlin.
April 3, 1968
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein firebomb 2 Frankfurt department stores to protest the escalation of the Vietnam War.
April 4, 1968
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein are arrested for the arsons of the previous day.
Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
April 11, 1968
Student leader Rudi Dutschke is shot three times, including once in the head, and seriously injured in West Berlin. The shooter, Josef Bachmann, is a young right-wing worker from Munich, who claims to have been inspired by the
Bild Zeitung.
The shooting sparks weeks of violent unrest, primarily directed against the Springer Press. In Munich, two demonstrators are killed in clashes with the police. Demonstrations and clashes occur for the rest of the month in cities throughout West Germany.
May 1968
Student mass demonstrations happen around the world: West Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Yugoslavia, England, Turkey, Brazil, Japan, the USA…
May 3–June 30, 1968
A student strike in Paris, France sets in motion events that will last until August, including widespread workers strikes, mass demonstrations, street confrontations, and factory occupations, almost bringing down the Charles De Gaulle government.
May 5, 1968
Ulrike Meinhof argues in her weekly column in the influential left magazine
konkret
that the time has come to escalate from protest to resistance.
May 15–30, 1968
A wave of demonstrations against the proposed Emergency Laws sweeps West Germany.
May 30, 1968
In West Germany, the Emergency Laws become law. Student protests erupt all over the country. Police forcibly clear Frankfurt University.
May 31, 1968
80,000 people in more than 50 cities demonstrate to protest the adoption of the Emergency Laws.
June 28, 1968
The Emergency Powers Act is passed. A riot occurs at the Free University in West Berlin.
September 12–16, 1968
At the 23rd Delegates Conference of the SDS in Frankfurt, Heike Sanders of the Steering Committee for Women’s Liberation intervenes to denounce the male authoritarian nature of the SDS and is booed down. When SDS leader Hans-Jürgen Krahl refuses to address the issue, women attack him with tomatoes, marking a fundamental first step in the development of the women’s movement in West Germany and West Berlin.
October 14, 1968
The trial of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein for the April 3 department store arsons in Frankfurt begins.
October 30, 1968
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who had been expelled from France for his leading role in the protests there earlier in the year, is arrested for disrupting the arson trial of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Söhnlein, and Thorwald Proll.
October 31, 1968
The Frankfurt LG sentences Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein to three years in prison for the April department store arsons in Frankfurt.
November 4, 1968
Following threats to disbar left-wing attorney Horst Mahler because of his participation in anti-Springer protests, students and police clash violently in an incident that will, after the name of the street it occurs on, become known as the Battle of Tegeler Weg.
1969
February 27, 1969
Richard Nixon visits West Berlin and is met with massive demonstrations and an unsuccessful bombing attempt against his motorcade. Kommune 1 members Dieter Kunzelmann and Rainer Langhans are arrested for the attempted bombing. The bomb was supplied by
Verfassungsschutz
infiltrator Peter Urbach.
April 1, 1969
The
Sozialistisches Büro
is founded in Offenbach.
May 7, 1969
Because of political differences with her husband,
konkret
publisher Klaus Rainer Röhl, Ulrike Meinhof, at that time a
konkret
columnist, leads a group of thirty people who demolish the inside of his suburban Hamburg villa.
June 7, 1969
Young workers and apprentices demonstrate in Cologne. Their slogan is “Self-determination and class struggle instead of comanagement and union crap.”
June 13, 1969
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein, who had been sentenced for the April, 1968, department store arson, are released while their case is appealed.
Fall 1969
The urban guerilla groups Tupamaros-West Berlin and Tupamaros-Munich are formed. Dieter Kunzelmann and other members of the Tupamaros-West Berlin receive training in an Al Fatah (PLO) training camp in Jordan. There are six bombings in West Berlin.
September 2–19, 1969
Wildcat strikes occur in the mining, metal, energy, and car industries.
October 21, 1969
A new Social-Liberal coalition government of the SPD and the FDP is formed. Willy Brandt (SPD) is Chancellor, Gustav Heinemann (SPD) is President, and Walter Scheel (FDP) is Foreign Minister.
1970
February 12, 1970
Fifty-two psychiatric patients form the
Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv
(SPK—Socialist Patients’ Collective) in Heidelberg. The group’s motto is “Turn Illness Into a Weapon.”
March 21, 1970
At a meeting in Frankfurt the SDS Federal Association is dissolved by acclamation. A few local groups carry on for a short period.
April 4, 1970
Andreas Baader is arrested in West Berlin. While it first appears this was a “routine traffic stop”, it is later revealed that he was in fact set up by police spy Peter Urbach.
May 14, 1970
An armed group breaks Andreas Baader out of the library of the Institute for Social Research, where he had obtained permission to work with Ulrike Meinhof on a book about juvenile detention centres. An Institute employee, Georg Linke, is shot and seriously injured. This marks the beginning of the Red Army Faction (RAF).
May 20, 1970
In an amnesty, the new Social-Liberal Coalition pardons thousands of students who had been sentenced to up to nine months in prison for various offences committed at demonstrations.
June–August 1970
Twenty members of the RAF receive training in an Al Fatah (PLO) training camp in Jordan.
June 2, 1970
The West German press receives a communiqué claiming credit for breaking Baader out of prison on May 14.
June 5, 1970
In a statement entitled
Die Rote Armee aufbauen
(Build the Red Army), sent to the radical left magazine
883,
the RAF effectively announces its existence.
June 11, 1970
The so-called “Hand Grenade Law” is passed arming police with hand grenades, machineguns, and semiautomatic pistols.
September 17, 1970
Following a series of daring skyjackings by the PFLP’s External Operations section, civil war breaks out in Jordan. The massacre of Palestinians at the hands of the
Jordanian forces will be known as Black September, different estimates placing Palestinian deaths at between 4,000 and 10,000. As a result of this defeat, the PFLP (EO) will eventually be ejected from the PFLP.
September 29, 1970
Three simultaneous bank robberies, carried out in cooperation with the Blues, an amorphous organization including members of the Tupamaros-West Berlin and the Roaming Hash Rebels, mark the RAF’s first action. The robberies net 220,000 DM.
October 8, 1970
Acting on a tip-off, police raid two West Berlin apartments and arrest RAF members Horst Mahler, Irene Goergens, Ingrid Schubert, Monika Berberich, and Brigitte Asdonk. These are the first arrests of RAF members.
October 10, 1970
Hans-Jürgen Bäcker, suspected of being the snitch who gave away the location of the safehouses raided two days earlier, leaves the group. Shortly thereafter Uli Scholze, Ilse “Tinny” Stachowiak, Beate Sturm, and Holger Meins join the group.
November 16, 1970
City Hall in Neustadt is broken into, thirty-one official stamps, fifteen passports, and eleven ID cards are stolen.
November 21, 1970
City Hall in Lang-Gons is broken into; 166 ID cards, a bottle of cognac, and more than 430 DM are stolen.
December 4, 1970
RAF associate Eric Grustadt is arrested.
December 20, 1970
RAF associate Karl-Heinz Ruhland is arrested. He begins to cooperate immediately. Although he only knows RAF members by their code names, he will become a key witness in a series of RAF trials.
December 21, 1970
RAF members Ali Jansen and Uli Scholze are arrested in Nuremberg shortly after stealing a car. Astrid Proll and Ulrike Meinhof escape. Scholze is released the next day and leaves the RAF.
1971
January 15, 1971
Two banks in Kassel are simultaneously robbed by the RAF, netting an estimated 114,000 DM.
January 28, 1971
Minister of the Interior, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, announces a major manhunt for the RAF.
February 2, 1971
Hans-Jürgen Bäcker, who had left the group after being accused of being a snitch, is arrested and charged with participating in the Baader jailbreak.
February 10, 1971
RAF members Astrid Proll and Manfred Grashof are shot at by police in Frankfurt, but escape. The Springer Press declares the RAF to be “Public Enemy #1.”
February 25, 1971
A seven year-old child is kidnapped, and the media float the story that his abductors are demanding Mahler’s freedom—it turns out this is a lie, and young Michael Luhmer is released two days later unharmed.
February 28, 1971
The BAW (Federal Prosecutors Office) assumes responsibility for all RAF-related cases.
April 1971
The RAF releases its foundational manifesto,
Das Konzept Stadtguerilla
(The Urban Guerilla Concept).
April 12, 1971
RAF member Ilse “Tinny” Stachowiak is arrested at the Frankfurt train station.
April 13, 1971
RAF member Rolf Heissler is arrested during a bank robbery in Munich.
April 25, 1971
Letters received from alleged “left-wing kidnappers” claim that Professor Berthold Rubin and Rudolph Metzger had been abducted, and demand Horst Mahler’s release from prison. This later turns out to be a hoax masterminded by far-right lawyer Jürgen Rieger.
May 1971
Über den bewaffneten Kampf in Westeuropa
(Regarding the Armed Struggle in West Europe), a document signed The RAF Collective, but entirely the work of Horst Mahler, is released. The rest of the RAF reject the document, and the pursuant tension will eventually lead to Horst Mahler being expelled from the group.