The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1
Page 63
July 13, 1973
Federal Supreme Court Judge Knoblich rules that the state can proceed with x-rays and a scintigraphy (a radiographic procedure used to determine if brain surgery is necessary) on RAF prisoner Ulrike Meinhof, even against her will, and with the use of restraining devices or anesthesia if necessary. This decision is based on the proposition that Meinhof’s behaviour may be the result of a brain abnormality. Massive protest in West Germany and internationally, including the protest of many doctors, prevents the government from proceeding with its plan.
July 16, 1973
For the first time, the BKA raids the cells of RAF prisoners.
July 24, 1973
RAF member Ronald Augustin is arrested in Lingen. Augustin is a Dutch citizen who met RAF members when they were in Amsterdam.
November 22, 1973
The West Berlin LG sentences RAF member Ali Jansen to ten years in prison on two counts of attempted murder.
1974
January Katharina Hammerschmidt, who has been denied medical care while in prison, is released to a clinic and her trial adjourned. She is suffering from cancer.
January 3, 1974
RAF prisoner Ulrike Meinhof is released from the Cologne-Ossendorf dead wing. Shortly thereafter she releases a document describing the physical and psychological impact of sensory deprivation torture.
February 4, 1974
In simultaneous predawn actions, RAF safehouses are raided by police in Hamburg and Frankfurt. RAF members and supporters Helmut Pohl, Ilse Stachowiak, Christa Eckes, and Eberhard Becker are arrested in Hamburg, while Margrit Schiller, Kay-Werner Allnach, and Wolfgang Beer are arrested in Frankfurt. Astrid Proll is released from prison for health reasons; she later flees to London, England, where she lives under the name of Anna Puttick.
April 25, 1974
In Portugal, the Caetano dictatorship is overthrown in a leftwing military coup, known as the Carnation Revolution. By the end of the year, all Portuguese colonies will receive their independence.
April 28, 1974
RAF prisoners Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin transferred from Cologne-Ossendorf prison to Stammheim.
May 16, 1974
SPD Chancellor Willy Brandt, under constant fire since it became known in late April that one of his personal assistants was an East German spy, steps down, handing power to Helmut Schmidt.
May 21, 1974
Taxi driver Günter Jendrian is killed by police in Munich when they mistake him for a RAF member.
May 31, 1974
Siegfried Buback succeeds Ludwig Martin as Attorney General.
July 23, 1974
In the wake of a failed coup, the Greek military junta collapses.
September 1974
The RAF prisoners release Provisorisches Kampfprogramm für den Kampf um die politischen Rechte der gefangenen Arbeiter (Provisional Program of Struggle for the Political Rights of Imprisoned Workers), the only document they will ever release addressing prisoners in general.
Sept. 13, 1974–Feb. 5, 1975
Ulrike Meinhof announces the RAF prisoners’ 3rd collective hunger strike while testifying at the trial where she, Horst Mahler, and Hans-Jürgen Bäcker face charges related to Baader’s breakout from the Institute for Social Reserach Library. For the first time, the prisoners demand association with one another, rather than integration into general population. At least thirty-one prisoners, including 2JM prisoners and others participate.
September 27, 1974
Monika Berberich reads a statement expelling Horst Mahler from the RAF during the Bäcker-Mahler-Meinhof trial at which she is testifying. Mahler has by this time joined the Maoist KPD (previously known as the KPD/AO).
October 2, 1974
The perceived leadership of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Holger Meins are indicted on dozens of charges.
October 16, 1974
The BAW files for seizure of the correspondence between defense attorney Kurt Groenewold and the RAF prisoners on the basis of a claim that attorneys form the core of an illegal RAF communication system.
November 9, 1974
RAF member Holger Meins dies after almost two months on hunger strike against isolation. Demonstrations break out all over West Germany.
November 10, 1974
Günter von Drenkmann, President of West Berlin Supreme Court, is killed during an attempted kidnapping by the 2JM. A communiqué is issued claiming the action in retaliation for the death of Holger Meins.
November 18, 1974
Holger Meins is buried in the family grave in Hamburg. Five thousand people attend the funeral, amongst them Rudi Dutschke, who, standing over Meins’ casket, famously gives the clenched fist salute, crying, “Holger, the fight goes on!”
November 26, 1974
With Aktion Winterreise (Operation Winter Trip), the BKA searches dozens of houses and offices in twelve cities, including the West Berlin office of attorneys Klaus Eschen, Henning Spangenberg, and Hans-Christian Ströbele. Roughly forty people are arrested.
November 29, 1974
The West Berlin LG sentences Ulrike Meinhof to eight years in prison for her role in the Baader jailbreak. Recently expelled RAF member Horst Mahler is sentenced to 14 years. Hans-Jürgen Bäcker, who testified against the guerilla, is acquitted.
December 4, 1974
Philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Jean-Paul Sartre visits RAF prisoner Andreas Baader in prison.
December 7, 1974
A bomb explodes in Bremen Central Station, and five people are injured.
December 9, 1974
The RAF issues a communiqué denouncing the Breman train station bombing as a police action.
December 13, 1974
Attorney General Siegfried Buback files for seizure of the correspondence between RAF prisoners and defense attorneys Klaus Croissant and Hans-Christian Ströbele.
December 30, 1974
Second Senate Judge Theodor Prinzing rules that defense attorney Klaus Croissant is acting as supporter and spokesman for the RAF prisoners and, as such, for a criminal association.
1975
January 1, 1975
The Lex Baader-Meinhof (Baader-Meinhof Laws) come into effect. Amongst other things, the laws allow the court to exclude defense attorneys who are suspected of forming a criminal association with their clients, and allows trials to continue without the accused present if the reason for the absence is deemed to be the fault of the prisoner, e.g., the result of illness due to hunger striking.
January 20, 1975
Spiegel prints an interview with RAF prisoners Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe.
The Federal Supreme Court alleges that defense attorney Hans-Christian Ströbele is a member of a criminal association for referring to himself as a “socialist and a political attorney” and for expressing “solidarity with the thinking of the prisoners,” whom he refers to as comrades.
February 2, 1975
The RAF on the outside writes a letter to the hunger striking prisoners ordering them to call off their hunger strike and promising to carry out an action on their behalf.
February 27, 1975
The 2JM kidnap Peter Lorenz, CDU candidate for mayor in West Berlin, from his automobile, beating his chauffer Werner Sowa. Sowa identifies Angela Luther, who has been underground for three years, as one of the kidnappers. Luther, who was also alleged to be involved with the RAF’s 1972 May offensive, disappears without a trace.
February 28, 1975
The Lorenz kidnappers demand the release of six imprisoned guerillas: Rolf Pohle, Rolf Heissler, Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann, Verena Becker, Ingrid Siepmann, and Horst Mahler.
March 1–3, 1975
The Verfassungsschutz surreptitiously plants bugs in the cells of five RAF prisoners.
March 3, 1975
Rolf Pohle, Rolf Heissler, Verena Becker, Ingrid Siepmann, and Gabrielle Kröcher-Tiedemann with former West B
erlin Mayor, Heinrich Albertz acting as insurance, are flown to Aden, South Yemen. Horst Mahler declines to go with them.
March 4, 1975
Peter Lorenz is released unharmed, and police raid suspected left-wing safehouses throughout West Berlin and West Germany.
March 8, 1975
Facing pressure from the West German government, the government of South Yemen refuses to extradite the recently released prisoners, but does ask them to leave the country.
March 17, 1975
Defense attorney Klaus Croissant is barred from representing Andreas Baader.
April 15, 1975
American attorneys Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General of the United States, William Kunstler, Peter Weiss, and William Schaap file a formal protest against the Lex Baader-Meinhof at West Germany’s Constitutional Court. The court bars attorneys Klaus Croissant, Kurt Groenewold, and Hans-Christian Ströbele from the RAF’s defense team.
April 22, 1975
A Stuttgart court bars attorney Klaus Croissant from defending RAF prisoner Andreas Baader.
April 24, 1975
The RAF’s Holger Meins Commando occupies the West German Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden and demands the release of twenty-six political prisoners. During a tense standoff, the guerilla executes the Military and Economic Attaches. Police storm the building, detonating explosives the guerilla had laid. RAF member Ulrich Wessel is killed, and RAF member Siegfried Hausner is seriously injured.
As soon as the occupation begins, all RAF prisoners are searched and the Contact Ban is applied.
May 1975
Interpol declares the RAF a criminal organization and places fifteen West German citizens on its wanted list.
May 1, 1975
The Verfassungsschutz bugs two additional cells occupied by RAF prisoners.
May 4, 1975
RAF member Siegfried Hausner, who was seriously injured during the April 24 action at the German Embassy in Stockholm, dies in Stammheim Prison.
May 5, 1975
Defense attorney Kurt Groenewold is excluded as Andreas Baader’s attorney on the basis of allegations that his office served as an “information central” to allow prisoners to communicate amongst themselves.
May 9, 1975
Elisabeth von Dyck and Siegfried Haag are arrested on charges of smuggling weapons out of Switzerland. They are released soon after.
May 10, 1975
All of Siegfried Haag’s files related to the Stammheim trial are seized.
May 11, 1975
Attorney Siegfried Haag goes underground, joining the RAF.
May 13, 1975
Attorney Hans-Christian Ströbele is barred from defending Andreas Baader.
May 16, 1975
Rumours are spread in the media that the RAF is planning a poison gas attack on parliament.
May 21, 1975
The pretrial hearing for Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader begins in Stammheim. Defense attorneys Otto Schily, Marielouise Becker, Rupert von Plottnitz, and Helmut Riedel, as well as several court-appointed attorneys, are present, but Andreas Baader is still without an attorney.
May 23, 1975
Federal Minister of the Interior Werner Maihofer claims there are two hundred to three hundred terrorist sympathizers in West Germany, with a hardcore of about thirty.
June 5, 1975
RAF prisoner Andreas Baader reminds the court that he is still without legal representation and claims that the prisoners’ cells are bugged. He is dismissed as paranoid in the media. Two years later the government will admit to the bugs, but claim they were only used during the Stockholm crisis and briefly in 1976, after which the tapes were immediately erased.
June 12, 1975
Kurt Groenewold, one of the attorneys representing RAF prisoners, is subjected to the Berufsverbot for his alleged role in the RAF prisoners Info system.
June 23, 1975
Defense attorneys for the RAF prisoners in Hamburg, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, and West Berlin have their offices and homes searched. Hans-Christian Ströbele and Klaus Croissant are arrested. Files relating to the Stammheim trial are seized.
June 29, 1975
RAF member Katharina Hammerschmidt dies of cancer in a West Berlin hospital.
August 9, 1975
RAF prisoners Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe are jointly charged with four murders and fifty-four attempted murders.
September 2, 1975
The trial of RAF members, Manfred Grashof, Wolfgang Grundmann, and Klaus Jünschke begins in Kaiserslautern under heavy security.
September 13, 1975
A bomb explosion in Hamburg Central Station injures eleven people. Although the RAF is blamed by police and the media, the RAF, the 2JM, and the RZ all distance themselves from the action.
September 14, 1975
A false bomb threat at the Munich train station leads police to a communiqué signed by the RAF, the 2JM, and the RZ denouncing the recent train station bombings as counterinsurgency actions.
October 6, 1975
A bomb is discovered in the Nuremberg train station. Although the RAF is blamed by police and the media, the RAF, the 2JM, and the RZ all distance themselves from the action.
November 12, 1975
A bomb explodes in the Cologne Central Station. The RAF, the 2JM, and the RZ issue a common statement denouncing the bombing as a police counterinsurgency action.
December 16–24, 1975
Police carry out raids of left bookstores, publishers, printing presses, and housing collectives throughout West Germany.
December 21, 1975
An OPEC Conference in Vienna, Austria is raided by a mixed Palestinian/West German commando calling itself the Bewegung 21. Dezember der arabischen Revolution (December 21st Movement of the Arabic Revolution), under the leadership of the Venezuelan Carlos. They take the Oil Ministers hostage. One guerilla, RZ member Hans-Joachim Klein, is severely injured in an exchange of fire in the OPEC office, which also leaves Austrian police officer Anton Tichler, Iraqi guard Khalifi, and a Libyan Oil Ministry representative Yousef Ismirili dead. 2JM member Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann is identified as the shooter. In exchange for the hostages the guerillas receive a $5 million ransom and are flown to Algeria.
1976
January 13, 1976
The trial of RAF prisoners Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe begins.
January 16, 1976
The West German parliament passes §88a, a censorship law, under which, effective May 1 of that year, writing, producing, publishing, distributing, advertising, selling, or displaying materials “glorifying acts of violence” is a criminal offense subject to a maximum three year jail sentence.
January 20, 1976
RAF prisoner Ulrike Meinhof’s attorney Axel Azzola puts forward a motion that the defendants in the Stammheim trial be recognized as POWS.
March 16, 1976
The Hamburg LG sentences RAF member turned state witness Gerhard Müller to ten years in prison. In exchange for his cooperation, Müller is never charged with the murder of police officer Norbert Schmid. Instead, he is released after six and a half years, paid 500,000 DM, and relocated to the U.S.A.
RAF member Irmgard Möller is sentenced to four and a half years.
May 4, 1976
Attorneys for RAF prisoners Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe petition to have Richard Nixon, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georg Kiesinger, and Walter Scheel called as witnesses in an attempt to prove that U.S. activity in Southeast Asia violated international law, making the RAF attacks legitimate and legal under international law. The petition is rejected.
May 6, 1976
The trial of the members of the RAF Holger Meins Commando, Hanna Krabbe, Lutz Taufer, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, and Bernd Rössner begins.
May 7, 1976
Police Chief Fritz Sippel is shot in Sprendlingen. It is be
lieved that RAF members Peter-Jürgen Boock and Rolf Clemens Wagner are the shooters.
May 9, 1976
RAF member Ulrike Meinhof is found hanged in her cell. The state claims it is a suicide. Fellow prisoners and supporters assert that it is murder. An International Commission will eventually rule that the evidence indicates rape and murder.
May 10, 1976
In response to Ulrike Meinhof’s murder there are riots in West Berlin and a molotov cocktail attack on the Land Courthouse in Wuppertal.
May 11, 1976
RAF prisoner Jan-Carl Raspe makes a brief statement during the Stammheim trial and releases a package of documents that indicate Meinhof’s state of mind at the time of her death and the unlikelihood that she committed suicide. In response to Ulrike Meinhof’s murder, there is rioting in Frankfurt, during which a police officer is severely burned when a molotov cocktail explodes in his car.
May 14, 1976
In response to Ulrike Meinhof’s murder, the Stachus Shopping Centre in Munich is bombed. Police raid a dozen collective houses in Frankfurt, arresting fourteen people on a variety of charges relating to the May 11 riot, including attempted murder. All are released the next day.
May 14–16, 1976
Thirty-six women hunger strike in Hessen prison in response to Meinhof’s murder.
May 16, 1976
Ulrike Meinhof is buried in West Berlin. Following the funeral, there is a massive demonstration.
May 18, 1976
Eight thousand demonstrate in West Berlin against murder of Meinhof. Clashes with the police lead to numerous arrests.
June 2, 1976
The RZ’s Ulrike Meinhof Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Army and U.S. Officers Club in Frankfurt.
A group calling itself the Friends of the 2nd of June firebombs two fully loaded military trucks at the U.S. Air Force Base in Frankfurt.
June 5–7, 1976
The Sozialistisches Büro organizes an Anti-Repression Congress in Frankfurt. Twenty thousand people take part. Attorney Klaus Croissant is among the speakers, as is sponti leader Joschka Fischer, who makes a historic speech urging the radical left to reject the armed struggle.
June 10, 1976
The Interior Ministers Conference gives the police the right to shoot to kill when dealing with suspected terrorists.