WikipediaExtracts:Red Army Faction

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({{Age in years and days|1970|5|14|1998|4|20}})}}"},"dissolved":{"wt":""},"merger":{"wt":""},"split_from":{"wt":""},"merged_into":{"wt":""},"split_to":{"wt":""},"country":{"wt":""},"allegiance":{"wt":""},"clans":{"wt":""},"headquarters":{"wt":""},"newspaper":{"wt":""},"active_regions":{"wt":"{{ubl|West Germany <br /> (until 1990)|Germany <br /> (from 1990)|France|Netherlands|Sweden}}"},"ideology":{"wt":"{{Plainlist|\n* Communism\n* Marxism–Leninism\n* Maoism{{refn|<ref name=\"dapprich_quote\">{{cite book |title=The historical development of West Germany's new left from a politico-theoretical perspective with particular emphasis on the Marxistische Gruppe and Maoist KGruppen |year=2013 |last=Dapprich |first=Matthias |isbn=9783746098456 |publisher=Books on Demand GmbH |page=49 |quote=\"The legitimacy of violent and political resistance was also stressed by Mao Zedong, who was widely cited by the RAF in its first public statements. In contrast to the violent resistance of terrorist factions, political Maoists stressed the importance of political resistance to the bourgeois society.\"}}</ref><ref name=\"devitt_quote\">{{cite book |title=Gewalt und Gedächtnis: An Examination of Gerhard Richter's 18. Oktober 1977 in Relation to the West German Mass Media |year=2019 |first=Matthew |last=McDevitt |publisher=Trinity College Digital Repository |page=20 |quote=\"Acting on Carlos Marighella's influential Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla and the Maoist tenet that bringing the armed struggle from the fringes of society to the center of the metropole is the necessary precondition for meaningfully altering the superstructure, the RAF attempted to aggravate the Federal Republic into overreacting, thus exposing the unrelenting and unsympathetic mechanisms of the state.\"}}</ref>}}\n* Revolutionary socialism\n* Anti-fascism\n* Anti-imperialism\n}}"},"position":{"wt":"Far-left{{refn|<ref>{{cite book |last1=Escalona |first1=Fabien |last2=Keith |first2=Daniel |last3=March |first3=Luke |date=2023-04-17 |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Radical Left Parties in Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wTu6EAAAQBAJ |publisher=Springer Nature |page=236 |isbn=978-1137562647 |quote=Besides small, completely marginal, yet nevertheless notoriously violent groups (the Red Army Faction, June 2 Movement), the most significant groups of the radical left were the so-called K-gruppen (communist groups). |access-date=2025-08-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2005-10-31 |title=PFLP, DFLP, PFLP-GC, Palestinian leftists |url=https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/pflp-dflp-pflp-gc-palestinian-leftists |website=cfr.org |location=US |publisher=Council on Foreign Relations |quote=In 1976, breaking a PLO agreement to end terrorism outside Israeli-held territory, PFLP members joined with West German radical leftists from the Baader-Meinhof Gang to hijack an Air France flight bound for Tel Aviv and landed the plane in Entebbe, Uganda. |access-date=2025-08-25}}</ref>}}"},"anthem":{"wt":""},"status":{"wt":""},"size":{"wt":""},"revenue":{"wt":""},"part_of":{"wt":""},"war":{"wt":""},"website":{"wt":""},"preceded_by":{"wt":""},"succeeded_by":{"wt":""},"module":{"wt":""}},"i":0}}]}' id="mwDA">

The Red Army Faction (German: Rote Armee Fraktion<link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Articles_containing_German-language_text" about="#mwt46" id="mwGQ"/>, pronounced [ˌʁoːtə ʔaʁˈmeː fʁakˌtsi̯oːn] <link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_with_German_IPA" about="#mwt47"/><link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_including_recorded_pronunciations" about="#mwt47" id="mwGw"/>; RAF [ˌɛʁʔaːˈʔɛf] <link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_with_German_IPA" about="#mwt50"/><link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_including_recorded_pronunciations" about="#mwt50" id="mwHg"/>), also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang (German: Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe / Baader-Meinhof-Bande<link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Articles_containing_German-language_text" about="#mwt52" id="mwJg"/> [ˈbaːdɐ ˈmaɪnhɔf ˈɡʁʊpə] <link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_with_German_IPA" about="#mwt53"/><link rel="mw:PageProp/Category" href="./Category:Pages_including_recorded_pronunciations" about="#mwt53" id="mwKA"/>), was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970, active until 1998, and formally designated a terrorist organisation by the West German government. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a fascist state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term "faction" when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler.

The RAF engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shootouts with police over the course of three decades, which was known as the RAF terrorism. Its activities peaked in late 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn". The RAF has been held responsible for 34 deaths, including industrialist and former SS officer Hanns Martin Schleyer, Dresdner Bank head Jürgen Ponto, federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback, police officers, American servicemen stationed in Germany, as well as many cases of collateral damage, such as chauffeurs and bodyguards, with many others injured throughout its almost thirty years of activity; 26 RAF members or supporters were killed. Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than the Revolutionary Cells, which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995. The group was motivated by leftist political concerns and the perceived failure of their parents' generation to confront Germany's Nazi past, and in later years some ex-members received support from Stasi and other Eastern Bloc security services.

Sometimes, the group is talked about in terms of generations:

the "first generation", which consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and others;
the "second generation", after the majority of the first generation was arrested in 1972.
the "third generation", which existed in the 1980s and 1990s up to 1998, after the first generation died in Stammheim maximum security prison in 1977

{{flag|Netherlands}}<br />{{flag|United States}}<br />{{flag|Israel}}{{Citation needed|date=September 2026}}"},"combatant2":{"wt":" Red Army Faction <br /> Revolutionary Cells <br />File:PFLP-GC Flag.svg PFLP-GC{{Citation needed|date=September 2026}}"},"commander1":{"wt":"{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Helmut Schmidt<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Willy Brandt<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Hans-Dietrich Genscher<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Werner Maihofer<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Horst Herold<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}}H.-J. Wischnewski<br />{{flagdeco|West Germany}} Ulrich Wegener"},"commander2":{"wt":" Andreas Baader{{executed|suicide pact}}<br /> Gudrun Ensslin{{executed|suicide pact}}<br /> Ulrike Meinhof{{executed|suicide pact}}<br />{{flagicon image|PFLP-GC Flag.svg}} Wadie Haddad"},"result":{"wt":"German government victory<br>RAF disbanded"},"casualties2":{"wt":"20 dead <ref name=\"auto\">{{Cite web|url=https://www.bpb.de/themen/linksextremismus/geschichte-der-raf/%7Ctitle=Die Geschichte der RAF|first=Bundeszentrale für politische|last=Bildung|date=20 August 2007|website=Bpb.de|access-date=25 July 2026}}</ref><br />Min. 1 injured"},"casualties1":{"wt":"34 dead <ref name=\"auto\"/><br />Min. 200 injured"}},"i":0}}]}' id="mwaw">

On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the submachine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved. In 1999, after a robbery in Duisburg, evidence pointing to Ernst-Volker Staub and Daniela Klette was found, causing an official investigation into a re-founding.

</section><section data-mw-section-id="1" id="mwgw"></section>

WikipediaExtracts:Red Army Faction

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