The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1 (86 page)

May 6, 1971
RAF founding member Astrid Proll is arrested in Hamburg.

May 18, 1971
The trial of Horst Mahler, Ingrid Schubert, and Irene Goergens for breaking Andreas Baader out from the Institute for Social Reserach Library begins. The trial will last less than one month and Schubert will receive a six-year sentence, Goergens four years, and Mahler will be acquitted though held in custody as the state prepared other charges.

June 24, 1971
SPK members exchange fire with the police at a traffic checkpoint, injuring one police officer. The SPK’s office is raided that evening. The SPK dissolves itself, many of its members going underground and joining the RAF.

July 1971
RAF members meet with the Blues and Tupamaros-West Berlin members to discuss the possibility of organizational fusion. Thomas Weissbecker and Angela Luther express an interest and begin working with RAF members.

July 8, 1971
Blues members Thomas Weissbecker, Michael “Bommi” Baumann, and Georg von Rauch go to trial for beating
Quick
journalist Horst Rieck. Baumann and Weissbecker are released on bail. Von Rauch, facing other charges, with a possible ten year sentence, pretends to be Weissbecker (the two men strongly resemble each other) and leaves with Baumann. Weissbecker is later released by the embarrassed authorities. All three go underground. This marks the beginning of the process leading to the formation of the 2nd of June Movement (2JM), a West Berlinbased anarchist guerilla group.

July 15, 1971
During
Aktion Kobra
(Operation Cobra), a manhunt involving 3,000 police officers, RAF member Petra Schelm is shot and killed by the police at a Hamburg roadblock. Werner Hoppe is arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer.

July 25, 1971
The respected Allensbach Institute publishes a poll indicating that 20% of West Germans younger than thirty feel a certain sympathy for the RAF and 10% of the population in the north of West Germany would shelter a RAF member for a night.

September 1971
Respected left publisher Rotbuch releases Mahler’s
Über den bewaffneten Kampf in Westeuropa
(Regarding the Armed Struggle in West Europe) in booklet form. It is promptly banned by the state.

September 1, 1971
Horst Herold is named head of the
Bundeskriminalamt
(Federal Criminal Bureau—BKA). He immediately begins centralizing the bureau and constructing what will become the most extensive police computer database in the world.

September 25, 1971
RAF members Margrit Schiller and Holger Meins exchange fire with the police in Freiburg. Police officer Friedrich Ruf is shot through the hand, and police officer Helmut Ruf (not related) is seriously injured.

October 21, 1971
During a routine traffic stop in West Berlin, a shootout occurs between Georg von Rauch and police officer Peter Mäker. Mäker is shot in the thigh, and von Rauch makes his escape.
Policeman Norbert Schmid is killed in a shootout with RAF members in Hamburg. RAF member Margrit Schiller is arrested in connection with the shooting in the early hours of the following morning. The shooter Gerhard Müller will later serve as a state witness in order to avoid being charged with murder.

November 1971
RAF prisoner Astrid Proll becomes the first prisoner to be held in the dead wing at Cologne-Ossendorf.

November 1, 1971
A bank robbery in Kiel is presumed to be the work of the RAF.

November 16, 1971
The BKA sets up the Baader-Meinhof Special Commission.

December 4, 1971
During a massive manhunt in West Berlin, following the discovery of a RAF safehouse, three Blues members are involved in a shootout with the police. Georg von Rauch is shot in the head and killed. Michael “Bommi” Baumann and another guerilla escape.

December 5, 1971
An estimated five to seven thousand people demonstrate in West Berlin to protest von Rauch’s killing.

December 8, 1971
A vacant nurse’s residence in West Berlin is occupied and named the Georg von Rauch House. It exists to this day, housing up to forty youth at any time.

December 17, 1971
Rolf Pohle is arrested while trying to buy guns in Neu-Ulm—the police claim the weapons were intended for the RAF.

December 22, 1971
RAF members Klaus Jünschke, Ingeborg Barz, and Wolfgang Grundmann rob a bank in Kaiserslautern, netting an estimated 134,000 DM. Police officer Herbert Schoner is shot dead when he stumbles upon the robbery.

December 1971–January 1972
In a series of meetings held at the Georg von Rauch House, members of the Blues, Tupamaros-West Berlin, the Roaming Hash Rebels, and the
Rote Ruhr Armee
decide upon fusion, forming the 2nd of June Movement (2JM).

1972
January 10, 1972
Spiegel
publishes a letter from noted West German author Heinrich Böll in which he describes the
Springer Press coverage of the RAF as “naked fascism,” making him a target of the right-wing media and the police for years to come.

January 28, 1972
The Interior Ministers Conference passes the
Radikalenerlass
(Anti-Radical Act), generally known as the
Berufsverbot
(Professional Ban), barring people with left histories from working at any level of the civil service, including in the field of public education.

February 21, 1972
RAF members dressed in full Carnival regalia rob a bank in Ludwigshafen, making off with 285,000 DM.

March 1, 1972
Richard Epple, a seventeen-year-old apprentice, who is driving without a license, is mowed down when he runs a police checkpoint.

March 2, 1972
An unarmed Thomas Weissbecker is shot and killed by police in Augsburg. RAF member Carmen Roll is arrested while trying to flee. In Hamburg, police raid a RAF safehouse. When RAF members Manfred Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann arrive, a police officer opens fire. Grundmann surrenders immediately, but Grashof returns fire. Police Superintendent Hans Eckhardt is seriously wounded and subsequently dies of his injuries, and Grashof is seriously injured. Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, who is in charge of all RAF arrests, nonetheless orders Grashof removed from the hospital to a prison cell.

March 3, 1972
Demonstrations throughout West Germany to protest the murder of Weissbecker.
2JM bomb the Berlin
Landeskriminalamt
(
Land
Criminal Bureau—LKA) in retaliation for the killings of RAF members Petra Schelm and Thomas Weissbecker.

March 15, 1972
Former RAF associate turned state witness Karl-Heinz Ruhland is sentenced to four and a half years.

March 22, 1972
The Social-Liberal coalition government passes the
Schwerpunktprogramm Innere Sicherheit
(Priority Program for Internal Security), increasing and upgrading security measures overall and expanding the powers of the
Verfassungsschutz
.

April 1972
The RAF issues a major document entitled
Dem Volk dienen: Stadtguerrilla und Klassenkampf
(Serve the People: The Urban Guerilla and Class Struggle).
Spiegel
prints extracts.
The not-guilty sentence against Horst Mahler in the Baader jailbreak trial is overturned on appeal.

May 1972
The RAF responds to the carpet-bombing of Vietnam with a bombing offensive known as the May Offensive.

May 11, 1972
The RAF’s Petra Schelm Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Army’s V Corps in Frankfurt. One officer is killed and thirteen soldiers are injured.

May 13, 1972
The RAF’s Thomas Weissbecker Commando bombs the police headquarters in both Augsburg and Munich to avenge Thomas Weissbecker’s killing.

May 14, 1972
The RAF release a communiqué
For the Victory of the People of Vietnam
claiming responsibility for May 11 bombing.

May 15, 1972
The RAF’s Manfred Grashof Commando plants a bomb in Judge Buddenberg’s car. His wife Gerta is seriously injured, when she, instead of Judge Buddenberg, uses the car.

May 16, 1972
The RAF releases a communiqué claiming responsibility for May 13th bombing.

May 19, 1972
The RAF’s 2nd of June Commando bombs the Springer Building in Hamburg. Despite three warnings, the building is not cleared and seventeen workers are injured.

May 20, 1972
The RAF release a communiqué addressing the May 15 attack on Judge Buddenberg, and another regarding the May 19 attack on the Springer Building.

May 24, 1972
The RAF’s July 15th Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe in Heidelberg. Three soldiers are killed.

May 25, 1972
The RAF releases a communiqué addressing the attack of the previous day.

May 28, 1972
The RAF issues a communiqué to the West German press demanding that they print the communiqués explaining the May Offensive.

May 28, 1972
A false communiqué is issued claiming that the RAF will place three random car bombs in Stuttgart on June 2, the anniversary of the killing of Benno Ohnesorg.

May 29, 1972
The RAF issues a communiqué addressing the false communiqué regarding the attacks threatened against Stuttgart.

May 31, 1972
A recorded message from Ulrike Meinhof is played at the Red Aid Teach-In in Frankfurt. The BKA initiates a massive manhunt for RAF members, known as Operation Washout.

June 1, 1972
RAF members Andreas Baader, Holger Meins, and Jan-Carl Raspe are arrested in Frankfurt. Baader is shot in the thigh. Three hundred cops and a tank are used to make the arrests.

June 3–4, 1972
Close to 10,000 people attend the Angela Davis Congress in Frankfurt, organized by the
Sozialistisches Büro
. Oskar Negt, an important New Left intellectual, uses the occasion to launch an attack on the RAF, arguing that leftists should not show the guerilla any solidarity.

June 7, 1972
RAF member Gudrun Ensslin is arrested in a boutique in Hamburg after a shop attendant notices a gun in her purse.

June 9, 1972
RAF members Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Bernhard Braun are arrested in West Berlin.

June 15, 1972
RAF member Ulrike Meinhof and supporter Gerhard Müller are arrested in an apartment outside of Hannover. Police are tipped off by a left-wing trade unionist who had agreed to shelter them for the evening. Meinhof will be held in the dead wing at Cologne-Ossendorf, where she will remain without respite for eight months.

June 22, 1972
The constitution is amended to increase prison sentences and to increase the powers of the police and to better arm them, particularly in the case of the
Bundesgrenzschutz
(Federal Border Patrol—BGS) and the
Verfassungsschutz
.

June 25, 1972
Scottish businessman Ian McLeod is shot and killed by police who believe him to be a RAF member. At the time he is standing naked, unarmed, in his bedroom.

June 29, 1972
On the advice of her attorney, Otto Schily, Katharina Hammerschmidt, who is wanted for supporting the RAF, surrenders to the police.

July 7, 1972
Recent RAF recruit Hans-Peter Konieczny is cornered by the police in Offenbach. He is persuaded to cooperate in exchange for leniency. He agrees to set up Klaus Jünschke
and Irmgard Möller, who are arrested two days later. Konieczny is released two months later.

July 13, 1972
Attorney Jörg Lang, who is believed to have introduced Konieczny to the RAF, is arrested and charged with acquiring safehouses for the group.

July 9, 1972
RAF members Irmgard Möller and Klaus Jünschke are arrested in Offenbach, set up with the help of Konieczny.

July 26, 1972
The Hamburg LG sentences RAF member Werner Hoppe, who was captured on July 15, 1971, to ten years in prison for attempted murder.

September 5–6, 1972
Palestinian guerilla group Black September takes eleven Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympic Games in Munich. Offered safe passage out of the country, they are ambushed by police at Fürstenfeldbruck Airport. During the ensuing shootout, the eleven athletes are executed, one cop is killed, and five of the eight Black September members are killed.

September 12, 1972
The Interior Ministers Conference establishes the GSG-9, a special counterterrorism police unit.

October 3, 1972
The West German government bans General Union of Palestinian Workers and the General Union of Palestinian Students. Approximately one hundred Palestinians are expelled from West Germany.

October 29, 1972
The Palestinian guerilla group Black September hijacks an airplane and demands the release of the three Palestinians who survived the September 6 shootout. This time West Germany acquiesces.

November 1972
The RAF releases a major document entitled
Die Aktion des Schwarzen September in München—Zur Strategie des antiimperialistischen Kampfes
(The Black September Action in Munich: Regarding the Strategy for Anti-Imperialist Struggle). In it, they use the Black September attack in Munich as a starting point for a sweeping discussion of anti-imperialist resistance in West Germany and throughout the world.

1973
Jan. 17–Feb. 16, 1973
Forty RAF prisoners participate in the 1st collective hunger strike, demanding access to independent doctors and transfer to the general population. Andreas Baader announces the hunger strike while testifying at Horst Mahler’s trial in West Berlin.