Members of the Red Army Faction
The Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, was one of the most significant terrorist organisations in post-war West Germany.
Betweens the sixties and eighties nearly 100 Germans joined terrorist organisations in the fight against capitalism and they had hundreds of supporters and sympathisers. Terrorist organisations like J2M and The SPK were very closely linked to the Baader-Meinhof Gang and indeed many of their members mixed and at times these terrorist organisations were synonymous with each other (e.g. The 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy).
The Baader-Meinhof Gang grew larger and larger as its influence got bigger, resulting in first and second 'generations' of the gang. Below is a selected list of the main members of the gang.
First Generation Baader-Meinhof Gang
Andreas Baader
Main Article: Andreas Baader
Andreas Baader was one of the founding members of the Baader-Meinhof gang (whose name makes up one half of its moniker). Baader was involved in bank raids and arson. He was arrested and tried at Stammheim alongside Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof and Jan-Carl Raspe, and given three times life imprisonment. He then supposedly committed suicide in prison on the 18th October 1977 using a handgun albeit it is also claimed that he was murdered in an extrajudicial killing. He was Gudrun Ensslin's boyfriend and described as a Marlon Brando type.
Gudrun Ensslin
Main Article: Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin was one of the founding members of the Baader-Meinhof gang and the girlfriend of Andreas Baader. She helped free Baader from police custody in 1970 and was involved in bank raids and arson and was given three times life imprisonment when charged at Stammheim. Supposedly committed suicide by hanging in prison on the 18th October 1977 albeit it is also claimed that she was murdered in an extrajudicial killing.
Ulrike Meinhof
Main Article: Ulrike Meinhof.
Ulrike Meinhof was another founding member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (whose name makes up one half of its moniker), Meinhof was a well-known journalist who wrote for the Konkret, and was the wife of Klaus Rainer Rohl. She was described as a German Julie Burchill. She helped free Andreas Baader from police custody in 1970 and was involved in car theft, arson and bank robbery. She was arrested and given an eight year prison sentence for freeing Baader. She committed suicide in her prison cell by hanging on May 9th 1976.
Jan-Carl Raspe
Main Article: Jan Carl Raspe
Jan-Carl Raspe was an early member of the Baader-Meinhof gang and was captured a short while before both Holger Meins and Andreas Baader were arrested in Frankfurt in 1970 (he had been the driver of their Porsche Targa). Alongside Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Stammheim. Raspe supposedly committed suicide in his cell using a 9mm Heckler & Koch handgun on the 18th October 1977 albeit it is also claimed that he was murdered in an extrajudicial killing.
Irmgard Möller
Main Article: Irmgard Möller
Irmgard Möller was an early member of the Baader-Meinhof gang and murdered three people when she drove a car full of explosives into United States Military Intelligence (G-2) Headquarters at Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg (1972). In July 1972, she was arrested and given a lengthy prison sentence. She supposedly attempted suicide by stabbing herself in the chest on the 18th October 1977 in her prison cell in Stammheim, but she survived and says that there was no suicide pact between Baader-Meinhof Gang members Jan-Carl Raspe, Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader and that they were the victims of extrajudicial killing.
Astrid Proll
Main Article: Astrid Proll
Astrid Proll was the younger sister of Thorwald Proll and met Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin through him (albeit he left the group before things go too serious). Astrid Proll was involved in bank robbery and also was an expert car thief. She was the getaway driver for Baader after he was freed from police custody by Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Ingrid Schubert, Irene Goergens and Peter Homann in 1970.
She was then arrested in Hamburg on 6 May and was imprisoned but released on health grounds, however she quickly absconded to England where she worked in at a various number of jobs. Proll was discovered and arrested by a special branch of the police in 1978 and returned to West Germany in 1979 to fight her case there.
She was charged five and a half years imprisonment on account of bank robbery and falsifying documents however she had already spent at least two-thirds of that time in German and English prisons and therefore was released immediately. She did not rejoin the Baader-Meinhof Gang.
Proll is bisexual.
Holger Meins
Main Article: Holger Meins
Holger Meins was a leftist cinematography student in West Germany and was tired of being hassled by police for his political viewpoint. He joined the Baader-Meinhof gang quite early on along with Beate Sturm and was seen somewhat as a leading member. In 1971 he was arrested alongside Jan-Carl Raspe and Andreas Baader during a shoot-out with the police in Frankfurt.
In prison the Baader-Meinhof gang called for a hunger strike as they felt they were being treated unfairly by the Government. Meins died on the 11 November 1974 as a result of the hunger strike. Meins weighed less than 100 pounds at the time of his death, he was over six feet (1.8 m) tall.
His death sparked rage amongst RAF members everywhere. The terrorists who executed the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm named their Commando in his honour as did the RAF terrorists who (supposedly) assassinated Olaf Palme.
Horst Mahler
Main Article: Horst Mahler
Horst Mahler was a German lawyer who is considered another founding member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Mahler wanted to convert Marxist theory into praxis and decided to do this through the establishment of urban guerillas i.e. The Baader-Meinhof Gang. His chance came to do this when he met Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin who he defended in court in 1968 against their arson charge. Mahler organised several bank raids and is believed to have organised the expedition to Jordan to train in urban guerrilla warfare with the PLO in 1970.
Later that year Mahler was arrested after police discovered an RAF hideout in Berlin. Mahler was sentenced to fourteen years in prison in 1972 (of which he had already served two). It was around this time that Mahler began to shed his marxist beliefs and a new manifesto he composed for the Baader-Meinhof gang expressing his new ideas was renounced by the rest of the group.
After this Mahler was virtually kicked out of the group; a group he helped establish. He was, however, offered the chance to leave prison in 1975 - a demand of the Peter Lorenz kidnappers, but he refused to go. He was released from prison in the early 1980s, was allowed to practice law again and completely reversed his politics. He became interested in neo-fascism and has recently joined the rightwing Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands.
Mahler's self-operated website can be viewed here.
Ingrid Schubert
Ingrid Schubert (born November 1944), was a physician from Berlin. She was involved in freeing Baader from police custody in 1970 (along with Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Irene Goergens and Peter Homann) and also took part in a few bank raids. Later that year police discovered an RAF hideout in Berlin, they entered the hideout to find Schubert there. She produced fake ID but when searched, a gun was found on her person. She was subsequently arrested and sentenced to thirteen years in prison for freeing Baader.
After Meinhof's suicide in 1976, Schubert was transferred to Stammheim to soothe and console Ensslin, and she was then transferred to Stadelheim prison in Munich after Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe and Andreas Baader all committed suicide on the 18th October 1977. Two weeks later Schubert followed suit and committed suicide in her prison cell by hanging on the 13th November 1977.
On 10th October 1985, the RAF terrorists who assassinated Gerold von Braunmuhl, a foreign ministry official in Bonn named their commando, 'The Ingrid Schubert Commando' in Schubert's honour.
Monika Berberich
Monika Berberich was a junior lawyer and Horst Mahler's secretary. She was involved in bank robbery and was also one of the members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang who trained in urban guerrilla warfare in Jordan with the PLO in 1970. She also facilitated Andreas Baader's escape from custody in 1970 by getting permission from prison officials to let Baader write a book with Ulrike Meinhof.
Later that year, Berberich arrived at an RAF hideout/apartment in Berlin. Hearing noises coming from the room, she listened at the door but was spotted by police who had been watching the apartment (the police had also just arrested both Ingrid Schubert and Mahler at that address a few hours beforehand). Berberich was dragged into the apartment and a few minutes later, Irene Goergens and Brigitte Asdonk (fellow terrorists) arrived at the door. Berberich screamed out and tried to warn them but she was jumped on by the police. Both Asdonk and Goergens were arrested.
Berberich was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment in 1974 (of which she had already served four years) for bank robbery and membership of a criminal association. However in 1976 she managed to escape from a maximum security prison in Berlin (along with J2M's Inge Viett, Gabriele Rollnick and Juliane Plambeck) by overpowering a guard and going over the wall. However she was re-arrested 14 days later on July 21.
In 1995 Berberich took part in an interview for a BBC documentary called "States of Terror." In the interview Berberich revealed that she has not changed her passion against the "fascism" of the German state.
Marianne Herzog
Marianne Herzog (born October 1939) was a journalist and the girlfriend of Jan Carl Raspe and joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang along with him in the early 1970s. Her apartment was sometimes used for Baader-Meinhof Gang meetings. It is thought that when Astrid Proll was arrested in 1970, she attempted to free her from prison.
Herzog herself was arrested on 3 December 1971 along with Rolf Phole after police had increased their efforts in the search for RAF/J2M members. She was charged with involvement in a criminal association .
Hans-Jürgen Bäcker
Hans-Jürgen Bäcker was an electrician and one of the earliest members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (joining before Andreas Baader was freed from police custody in 1970). His codename was Harp. He trained in Jordan with the PLO alongside the other original core members of the group shortly after Baader's escape.
After the arrests of Horst Mahler, Ingrid Schubert, Irene Goergens, Monica Berberich and Brigitte Asdonk in October of 1970, Bäcker was suspected by the remaining members of the gang to be a double agent working with the police. He was already untrusted in the group because he didn't get on well with Andreas Baader as he couldn't accept his authority. When, at a group meeting, Bäcker was confronted about his supposed betrayal he stormed out and the rest of the group accepted this as an admission of guilt. Backer parted ways with the group soon after that albeit because of his supposed deceit, Astrid Proll tried to assassinate him in a driveby shooting, but she missed.
Bäcker was arrested on 2 February 1971. In 1974 he was tried and acquitted of participating in the raid that rescued Baader.
Thomas Weissbecker
Thomas 'Tommy' Weissbecker (born February 1944) was an associate of Horst Mahler and a minor member of the Baader-Meinhof gang. In 1971 he was charged and acquitted with assaulting a Springer journalist. Later, On 2 March 1972, Weissbecker, along with Carmen Roll, was stopped by police outside a hotel in Augsburg. Weissbecker was shot dead by the police when he reached into his pocket, supposedly, to grab his gun, however some sources (Stefan Aust) say that he was simply reaching into his pocket to produce ID.
On 12 May 1972, over two months after Weissbecker's death, RAF terrorists bombed a police station in Augsburg and a Criminals Investigations Agency in Munchen. They claimed responsibility for the bombings in the name of the 'Tommy Weissbecker Commando' in Weissbecker's honour.
Wolfgang Grundmann
Wolfgang Grundmann (born June 1948) was very politically active and was associated with underground papers such as Agit 883. Grundmann was the boyfriend of Ingeborg Barz and joined the RAF along with her in 1971. It seems he took part in at least one bank raid on December 22 1971 in Kaiserslautern alongside Barz and Klaus Junschke.
On 2 March 1972, Grundmann and Manfred Grashof entered an RAF apartment used for forgery. Unbeknownst to them, police were hiding in the apartment, ready to ensnare anyone who would enter. When the police drew their weapons on Grundmann and Grashof, Grashof quickly drew his pistol and returned fire, but Grundmann surrendered and put his hands up straight away. Grashof was wounded, and then both men were arrested. Grundmann was released four years later in 1976.
Werner Hoppe
Werner Hoppe (born February 1949) was a lumpenproletariat self-cured drug addict. Hoppe worked as a dock worker and as a trainee television assistant. Hoppe joined the Baader-Meinhof gang around 1970 and was with Petra Schelm when she sped past a police roadblock on the 15th July 1971 in a BMW. A short car chase ensued with the BMW eventually being forced off the road. Hoppe ran off in a different direction from Schelm (who was subsequently shot to death), and was followed by a police helicopter. He was eventually surrounded by 80 or so policemen, so he surrendered. He was arrested and imprisoned.
Ingeborg Barz
Ingeborg Barz (born July 1948) was a young secretary who played around with radical politics (she had joined a revolutionary group called Black Help in Berlin) before joining the Baader-Meinhof Gang with her boyfriend Wolfgang Grundmann in 1971. Barz was seemingly involved in at least one bank robbery (on December 22 1971 in Kaiserslautern - with Grundmann) where a policeman was shot dead. Barz soon decided she wanted out of the group because she disliked their violent ways and on the 21 February 1972 she phoned her mother, tearful and distraught, saying that she wanted to come home.
Barz disappeared around this time and was never seen alive again. A decomposed body was found beside the autobahn near Munich in July 1973, believed, but not proven, to have been Barz's. It was presumed that Andreas Baader executed her after he found out that she wanted to leave the Gang. Karl-Heinz Ruhland said that the general idea was that if anyone wanted to desert the group then they would be liquidated and Gerhard Muller, a former RAF member, claimed that Baader murdered her, however his story was very inconsistent and so Barz's murder was never solved.
Karl-Heinz Ruhland
Karl-Heinz Ruhland (born March 1938) was a mechanic in the employ of Eric Grusdat. Ruhland helped Grusdat doctor stolen cars for the Baader-Meinhof Gang and later became a more active member of the Gang around October of 1970; he went with Ulrike Meinhof to Hannover, Cologne and Oldenburg to scout out safe houses for the gang and took part in bank robbery and also raided some municipal offices (stealing blank passports, ID cards etc). On the 20 December 1970, Ruhland was driving through Oberhausen with fellow RAF members Ali Jansen and Beate Sturm when police stopped his car and when they checked his papers they noticed something was wrong with them. Ruhland handed himself in but first gave his associates time to escape. When in custody Ruhland provided detailed accounts of his time with the RAF and informed Police about the whereabouts of some safehouses.
Ruhland was never part of the main circle of the Gang even though he was Meinhof's occasional lover. He hardly knew any of the other members of the gang by their real names (he only knew their codenames). He once punched Jansen in the face after he defaced a Volkswagen in Oberhausen.
Uli Scholze
Ulrich 'Uli' Scholze (born December 1947), a student, was a very minor member of the Red Army Faction and was only involved with the Gang for a few months in 1970.
On the 21 December 1970, Scholze tried to steal a Mercedes-Benz along with Astrid Proll, Ulrike Meinhof and Ali Jansen but the car back-fired and woke its owner who subsequently called the police. Proll and Meinhof escaped but Scholze and Jansen were chased by the police and caught. Scholze went quietly but Jansen fired crazily at the police. Both men were arrested, but Scholze was released the next day. He quit the Baader-Meinhof Gang and returned home to his mother and college.
Manfred Grashof
Manfred Grashof (born October 1946) was an army deserter. Grashof seems to have been intrigued by the idea of communism and joined the countercultural commune Kommune 1 in Berlin in the late 1960s. After this he decided to take more direct action against the state and joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang along with his girlfriend Petra Schelm in 1970 and trained with the gang in Jordan under the tutelage of the PLO.
He once escaped arrest with Astrid Proll on 10 February 1971 when they were stopped by police. Although Grashof did produce a gun he didn't fire a shot, and managed to run away from the police when a sympathetic passer-by bought him a U-Bahn ticket.
However Grashof wasn't so lucky the next time and on 2 March 1972 in Hamburg, Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann walked into a trap; the police were lying in wait in an apartment used by the RAF for forgery. Grashof started firing at the police. He fatally wounded one of them (who died three weeks later in hospital) but was shot twice and arrested. He survived the ordeal but was transferred from hospital to an isolation cell (with the lights switched on day and night) when he was well enough.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on June 2 1977. To avenge his imprisonment, the RAF terrorists who bombed Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg's car on May 15th 1972 named their commando 'The Manfred Grashof Commando' in his honour.
Heinrich 'Ali' Jansen
Heinrich 'Ali' Jansen (born February 1948) joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang after they returned from training in Jordan. He participated in some Berlin bank raids in September 1970 and also helped Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Ulrike Meinhof steal cars and raid municipal offices (for blank passports and ID cards etc). He was known for getting drunk and once in Oberhausen he spent the money he had been allotted by the gang to buy fake IDs with, on alcohol. Also, he caused another incident in Oberhausen when he defaced the volkswagen of a radio DJ. He was dealt with by Ruhland who punched him in the face.
He was nearly arrested once on the 20 December 1970, when he was driving through Oberhausen with Ruhland and Beate Sturm and their car was stopped by police. He managed to escape with Sturm but Ruhland was arrested. However, a day later on the 21 December, Jansen was arrested when trying to steal a Mercedes-Benz with Ulrike Meinhof, Astrid Proll and Uli Scholze. The car back-fired and woke its owner who called the police. Proll and Meinhof escaped when the police arrived, but Scholze and Jansen weren't so lucky. Jansen whipped out his handgun and started firing crazily at the police, no one was hurt however and both Jansen and Scholze were arrested.
Jansen was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Petra Schelm
Petra Schelm (born August 1950) was a young Berlin hairdresser and joined the Baader-Meinhof group along with her boyfriend Manfred Grashof. She travelled to Jordan alongside the rest of the Gang and trained in urban guerrilla warfare with the PLO in May 1970.
On July 15th 1971, Schelm was driving through Hamburg with Werner Hoppe when she sped her BMW through a police roadblock. The police gave chase and forced her BMW off the road. Schelm and Hoppe ran off in different directions. Hoppe was followed by a police helicopter and was caught and arrested, but Schelm did not surrender. She threw away a jacket she was holding to reveal a handgun and fired at the police, but the police returned fire. Jillian Becker states that Schelm was killed from a burst of gunfire from a submachine gun but Stefan Aust states that it was a single bullet wound to the head that killed Schelm. In any case, Schelm died, she was 19 years old.
Her death was mourned by many and a lot of RAF members called for retribution. Even normal German citizens felt sorry for Schelm; a national poll taken shortly after her death revealed that as much as 20% of Germans felt some sympathy for her cause. She was buried at a cemetery in Spandau. At her funeral, fifty or so youths laid a red flag on her grave, albeit policemen later came and removed it.
Irmgard Moeller bombed the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg on 24 May 1972. She claimed responsibiity in the name of the July 15th Commando (the date of Petra Schelm's death) in honour of Schelm.
Brigitte Asdonk
Brigitte Asdonk (born October 1947), a student, joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang quite early in the 1970s and trained with them in Jordan under the tutelage of the PLO. She participated in some bank raids in Berlin but her life of crime was halted in October of 1970 when she walked into an apartment with Irene Goergens in Berlin in which police were hiding. She was immediately arrested.
Peter Homann
Peter Homann (born 1936) was an artist and journalist and close friend of Ulrike Meinhof. He lived with Meinhof in Berlin and it is believed that he helped Meinhof free Andreas Baader from police custody in 1970, along with Ingrid Schubert, Gudrun Ensslin and Irene Goergens.
Homann travelled to Jordan later in 1970 alongside the Baader-Meinhof Gang to train in urban guerrilla warfare with the PLO. However in Jordan Homann fell out with Andreas Baader and distanced himself from the group. He associated himself more with the fedayeen in the camp which lead his Gang members to suspect him of being a traitor. He eventually had to be removed from the camp and given a minder for his own safety. When he returned to West Germany, he left the Baader-Meinhof Gang.
He then quickly travelled to a hippy colony near Mount Etna in Sicily where Meinhof's twin children were staying. He took the children and returned them to their father, Klaus Rainer Rohl. He did this because Meinhof wanted to send her children to an orphan camp in Jordan, even though she would never see them again.
Homann was involved in a controversy in 1997 when he gave an interview to Der Spiegel in which he suggested that Horst Mahler had "sentenced" Homann to death in Jordan in 1970 (and Homann only thwarted the plan by leaving the training camp early). Mahler took severe umbrage at the suggestion that he called for Homann's death.
Ilse 'Tinny' Stachowiak
Ilse 'Tinny' Stachowiak (born May 1954) was one of the youngest members of the group when she joined in late 1970 at only 16 years old. She was involved in scouting out banks to see if they were suitable to be robbed. However on 12th April 1971, at a Frankfurt train station a policeman recognised her from a wanted poster and she was arrested.
She was given a short sentence and as soon as she was released she went immediately back underground. In 1972 she was involved in the 19th May bombing of the Springer Headquarters in Hamburg in which 17 people were injured. A month later in June, she was staying in Angela Luther's apartment when it was wrecked by explosions. She survived and managed to escape, however she was rearrested on 1st February 1974 and imprisoned.
Irene Goergens
Irene Goergens (born April 1951) was the abandoned bastard daughter of an American soldier. She lived in a state home and it was there that she met Ulrike Meinhof (who was doing research for her film Bambule), and after that became sort of Meinhof's protégé.
She was involved in the freeing of Andreas Baader in 1970 (along with Ingrid Schubert, Gudrun Ensslin, Peter Homann and Meinhof) and she also took part in some Berlin bank raids. She was arrested in October of 1970 with Brigitte Asdonk when she walked into an apartment in which police were hiding. She was released from prison with remission on the 13th May 1977 and did not rejoin the Gang.
Beate Sturm
Beate Sturm (born 1950), Holger Meins' protégé, was a physics student who briefly joined the Baader-Meinhof Gang in late 1970, probably for the same reasons Meins did (had grown weary of police harassment) but she also claimed she was trying to recreate the exciting world created in U.S. crime films. During her time with the Gang, Sturm was often selected to go into shops to buy things because it was believed that she was the one who looked the most bourgeoisie. On the 20th December 1970, Sturm was nearly caught as she was travelling through Oberhausen with Karl-Heinz Ruhland and Ali Jansen when their car was stopped by police. Ruhland was arrested but she managed to escape along with Jansen.
A month later in January 1971, Sturm was scouting out banks in Kassel when she decided she no longer wanted to live a life of crime. She called home and subsequently left the Gang without ever having technically committed any crimes. She later provided detailed information about the workings and structure of the gang. Her codename was Jutta.
Eric Grusdat
Eric Grusdat (born April 1936) was a mechanic who owned his own auto shop. He met Horst Mahler via Hans-Jurgen Backer. Through monetary enticement and political persuasion Grusdat, along with his employee Karl-Heinz Ruhland, agreed to doctor stolen vehicles for the Baader-Meinhof Gang, however he soon became much more involved than that; in 1970 he was involved in bank robbery in Berlin and he devised an instrument (much like a road spike) made of pipes and nails he called a Crows Foot, which could be used to stop police cars if they were ever chasing the gang.
He was arrested and imprisoned on the 4th December 1970.
Katharina Hammerschmidt
Katharina Hammerschmidt (born February 1943) was an early acquaintance of Gudrun Ensslin from the student days and provided accommodation for Baader-Meinhof Gang members around late 1970. Her house was eventually raided by police and Hammerschmidt fled abroad, but grew tired of life on the run and returned to West Germany in 1972 to hand herself over to authorities. When in custody she developed a brain tumour from which she died in 1975. Prison doctors were chastised for not noticing it early enough and accusations were made that prison authorities failed to give her proper medical care.
Edelgard G
Edelgard G was an early acquaintance of Gudrun Ensslin and provided accommodation for Baader-Meinhof members around late 1970. However her house was raided by police and she was arrested. She was told by police that she would never see her child again if she didn't make a statement and after 3 weeks she talked and was set free. A month or so later, Baader-Meinhof gang members tarred Edelgard, took a photo of her and sent it to a German press agency with a message that said; This is Edelgard G., an informer who is hand in glove with the killer pigs. Long live the RAF!
Edelgard refused to make another statement when police questioned her again.
Second Generation Baader-Meinhof Gang
By 1971, a large amount of the core members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang had all been captured and imprisoned. However there were other young terrorists available to swell the dwindling ranks of the Gang. These revolutionaries mostly had similar backgrounds to the first generation e.g. they were middle class, a lot of them were students. They came from many different social pools, but a lot of them were terrorists who joined the Gang after their own groups dissolved (e.g. the Socialist Patients' Collective, J2M).
Former SPK Members
The SPK, the leftist, 'therapy-through-violence' group, dissolved in 1971, and those members who had turned millitant forged links and joined with the Baader-Meinhof Gang. There were quite a few of them and below is a selected list of some of the major members.
Karl-Heinz Dellwo
Karl-Heinz Dellwo was born in April 1952. He was a school failure and described as very temperamental and prone to outbursts of violence. At one stage he lived with Susanne Albrecht and was a member of the ‘committee against the torture of political prisoners.’ He was involved with the SPK and took part in the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm. In July 1977 he was sentenced to twice life imprisonment for his participation in the Occupation, by a Dusseldorf Court. He was released in 1996.
Klaus Junschke
Klaus Junschke, born September 1947, was a student member of the SPK who managed to escape arrest when police came after certain members of the SPK in 1971. He joined the Red Army Faction with his terrorist girlfriend Elisabeth Van Dyck and was involved in at least one bank robbery (on December 1971 in Kaiserslautern – alongside Ingeborg Barz and Wolfgang Grundmann).
Junschke was arrested on March 2nd 1971. He was tried at a Kaiserslautern court sentenced alongside Manfred Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 2nd 1977.
Gerhard Müller said that Junschke was in some way involved in the bombing of the Axel Springer Verlag in Hamburg on 19th May 1972 (alongside Tinny Stachowiak, Ulrike Meinhof and Siegfried Hausner) even though he was detained at that time.
Hanna-Elise Krabbe
Hanna-Elise Krabbe was born in Bad Bentheim in October 1945. She was a member of the IZRU (the group which succeeded the SPK) and was the older sister of Friederike Krabbe, another terrorsit. Hanna-Elise Krabbe took part in the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm. She was the only female terrorist involved in the occupation. Her role during the occupation was to guard the hostages. She was arrested when the occupation failed, and was sentenced, in July 20th 1977, to twice life imprisonment. She was released from prison in 1996, after serving 21 years.
Friederike Krabbe
Friederike Krabbe was born in Bad Bentheim on the 31 May 1950. She is the younger sister of Hanna-Elise Krabbe, another terrorist. Friederike Krabbe studied psychology, pedagogy and sociology in Berlin from 1970 to 1973 and then went on to study medicine in Heidelberg.
She was involved with the SPK and after its dissolution, the RAF. She is wanted in connection to the Hanns Martin Schleyer kidnapping. She disappeared sometime in 1975 and her whereabouts are still unknown today.
Siegfried Hausner
Main Article: Siegfried Hausner
Siegfried Hausner, ((born January 1952 - died 24 April 1975), was a student member of the SPK and later the RAF, especially involved in the ‘working circle explosives.’ He was involved in many bombings; most notably the bombing of the Axel Springer Verlag on 19th May, 1972. He supervised the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in which he accidentally blew himself up, and died from serious injuries after being flown back to West Germany.
Brigitte Mohnhaupt
Main Article: Brigitte Mohnhaupt
Brigitte Mohnhaupt, born 24 June 1949 was a philosophy student who was a member of the SPK and later a member of the RAF. She became a very important member of the group and was a major player during the German Autumn. She was involved in the Jürgen Ponto murder, and the kidnap/murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer. She was involved in car theft and weapon procurement. She was arrested in June 1972 in Berlin and was released in 1977 where she returned to her life of crime. She was re-arrested in 1982 and sentenced to five times life imprisonment.
Carmen Roll
Carmen Roll was a member of the SPK and the RAF. She was especially involved in; ‘working circle explosives’ in which she achieved limited success with Siegfried Hausner when they managed to manufacture a small amount of TNT in the December 1970 in the University Institute of Physiology.
In February 1971, Roll, along with Hausner, planned to bomb the President of the Federal Republic’s special train in Heidelberg station, but she arrived to late with the explosives and the plot fell through.
In March 2nd 1972, Roll was spotted with Tommy Weissbecker outside a hotel in Augsburg. Weissbecker was shot dead and Roll was eventually arrested. Two weeks later she was given a near-fatal dose of ether by prison doctors.
In 1976 Roll was freed from prison, she moved to Italy and became a nurse. [1]
Bernhard Rössner
Bernhard Maria Rössner was born in October, 1946. He was a school failure and had travelled in the Middle East. Upon his return to West Germany he met with Karl-Heinz Dellwo and later took part in the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy with him. The Occupation failed and Rössner was arrested and imprisoned. In July 1977 he was sentenced to twice life imprisonment for his participation in the Occupation, by a Dusseldorf Court. He was released in 1996.
Margrit Schiller
Margrit Schiller was born in Bonn in March, 1948. She studied psychology in Bonn and Heidelberg and became a student member of the SPK and was one of the members who turned militant in 1970. After the SPK dissolved Schiller joined the Red Army Faction.
On October 22nd 1971, Schiller left a Hamburg train station around 10pm and realising she was being trailed by police she hid in a car park but the police were still tracking her. She ran into fellow terrorists Irmgard Moeller and Gerhard Muller and when the police tried to approach her she ran, followed by the police, Moeller and Muller. One of the police men caught Schiller but there was a scuffle and he was shot six times and killed, the other police man was shot in the foot. Schiller later claimed that it was Muller that was responsible for the murder. Later that night around 2am, police approached a female suspect in a telephone booth who turned out to be Schiller. When she came out the police drew their weapons; “Oh, and I thought you wanted to fuck me!” Schiller exclaimed. When they searched her they found a 9 mm calibre pistol in her handbag. She was arrested and sentenced to 27 months in prison.
Schiller was released in 1973 and went underground straight away. However in January/February of 1974 she was re-arrested after police carried out raids in Hamburg and Frankfurt. Whilst in prison Schiller took part, unsuccessfully, in some hunger strikes.
In 1979 Schiller was released from prison. In 1985 she moved to Cuba and has lived in Uruguay since 1993.
Lutz Taufer
Lutz Taufer was born in March 1944. He had links with the SPK and he protested against the supposed torture of political prisoners in the Federal Republic in 1974. In 1975 he took part in the 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm, and was arrested after the Occupation failed and was subsequently imprisoned. In July 1977 he was sentenced to twice life imprisonment for his participation in the Occupation, by a Dusseldorf Court. He was released in 1996. Taufer has been living in Brazil with his sister since 1999. [2]
Ulrich Wessel
Ulrich Wessel was born in 1946 to a rich Hamburg businessman. Wessel was described as a dandy, and he was a millionaire by inheritance. He was involved with the SPK and took part in the 24 April 1975 Occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm. He died during the Occupation when the TNT was accidentally exploded; propelling him out into the embassy grounds.