by J. Smith
1978
January 18, 1978
The trial of attorney Kurt Groenewold on charges of helping organize the RAF prisoners’ illegal communications system begins in Hamburg.
January 21, 1978
RAF member Christine Kuby is arrested in a shootout with police in a Hamburg drugstore. Kuby and a police officer are injured. Kuby was attempting to use a forged prescription to buy narcotics for fellow RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock, a drug addict.
January 28, 1978
The Tunix Congress is held in West Berlin. A broad cross section of the left meets to discuss how to proceed after the German Autumn.
February 1, 1978
RAF prisoners held in Holland begin a hunger strike, demanding an end to isolation and bans on visits, free access to literature, and to be flown to a country of their choice.
February 9, 1978
RAF prisoners in Hamburg begin a hunger strike, demanding POW status, association, the return of confiscated writings of Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Andreas Baader, and an independent investigation into the murders of the RAF prisoners.
March 3, 1978
Deutschland im Herbst (Germany in Autumn), a film examining the events surrounding the Schleyer kidnapping and the Stammheim deaths, with segments by several West German directors, including Alexander Kluge, Volker Schlöndorff, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, premieres. The events will thereafter be known as the Deutscher Herbst (German Autumn).
March 9, 1978
Former defense attorney Klaus Croissant’s trial begins. Croissant refuses to distance himself from his former clients, but, rather, publicly identifies himself with them ideologically.
March 10–April 2, 1978
RAF prisoners participate in the organization’s sixth collective hunger strike, demanding POW status, association, the release of seriously ill RAF prisoner Günter Sonnenberg, and the end to the psychological warfare against the RAF.
April 26, 1978
The Stuttgart OLG sentences Günter Sonnenberg to two life prison sentences.
May 11, 1978
RAF member Stefan Wisniewski is arrested at Orly Airport in Paris. He is in possession of a letter from RAF prisoner Karl-Heinz Dellwo criticizing the Schleyer kidnapping, along with forty capsules of narcotics for RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock, a drug addict.
June 30, 1978
RAF members, Sieglinde Hofmann, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Rolf Clemens Wagner, and Peter-Jürgen Boock are arrested in Yugoslavia.
July 10, 1978
The Hamburg OLG sentences attorney Kurt Groenewold to two years probation and a fine of 75,000 DM for supporting a criminal organization.
September 6, 1978
RAF member Willi-Peter Stoll is shot dead by police in a Düsseldorf restaurant.
September 15, 1978
Former RAF member Astrid Proll, who has been living under the name of Anna Puttick in London, is arrested by British police. She is extradited less than a year later to West Germany.
September 24, 1978
RAF members Angelika Speitel and Michael Knoll are wounded and arrested in a shoot-out in which police officer Hans-Wilhelm Hansen is killed. RAF member Werner Lotze escapes. Michael Knoll subsequently dies of his injuries.
November 1, 1978
RAF members Rolf Heissler and Adelheid Schulz shoot and kill Dutch border guards Dionysius de Jong and Johannes Goemans at the Kerkade border crossing into Holland.
November 6, 1978
Former RAF prisoner Wolfgang Beer along with supporters Peter Alexa, Mathias Böge, Simone Borgstedde, Ingrid Jakobsmeier, Rosemarie Priess, Helga Roos, and four other people, occupy the offices of DPA, demanding that the newswire run something about the life threatening prison conditions in which Karl-Heinz Dellwo and Werner Hoppe are being held. They are all arrested and sentenced to a year in prison.
November 17, 1978
Yugoslav authorities release RAF members Sieglinde Hofmann, Brigitte Monhaupt, Rolf Clemens Wagner, and Peter-Jürgen Boock, who were arrested on June 30. When the West German government refuses to exchange them for eight exiled Croat fascists, they are flown to an undisclosed third country.
December 14, 1978
The Stuttgart OLG sentences RAF supporters Volker Speitel and Hans-Joachim Dellwo to three years and two months, and two years in prison, respectively, for supporting a terrorist organization. Both had agreed to cooperate with the police in exchange for reduced sentences and new identities.
December 15, 1978
The International Investigatory Commission into the Death of Ulrike Meinhof releases its findings, which indicate that Meinhof was brutally raped and murdered.
Mid-December 1978
RAF members Susanne Albrecht, Sieglinde Hofmann, Christian Klar, Werner Lotze, Silke Maier-Witt, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Adelheid Schulz, and Rolf Clemens Wagner seek refuge at a Palestinian training camp in South Yemen.
1979
February 1979
RAF members Susanne Albrecht, Sieglinde Hofmann, Christian Klar, Werner Lotze, Silke Maier-Witt, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Adelheid Schulz, and Rolf Clemens Wagner return from South Yemen and begin preparations for a new offensive.
February 8, 1979
Werner Hoppe, whose health has been seriously damaged by years of isolation, is released from prison on compassionate grounds. He had disavowed the RAF and armed struggle the previous year.
February 16, 1979
The Stuttgart LG sentences attorney Klaus Croissant to two and a half years in prison and four years of Berufsverbot for supporting a terrorist organization.
April 20–June 26, 1979
More than seventy prisoners participate in the RAF prisoners’ seventh collective hunger strike, demanding the end of isolation, the application of the Geneva Convention for POWS, and the release of Günter Sonnenberg.
May 2, 1979
The Hamburg OLG sentences RAF member Christine Kuby to life in prison.
May 4, 1979
RAF member Elisabeth von Dyck is shot dead by the police in Nuremberg.
May 31, 1979
The Heidelberg LG sentences Irmgard Möller to life in prison for her role in the RAF’s May 1972 offensive.
June 9, 1979
RAF member, Rolf Heissler is shot in the head without warning as he enters an apartment in Frankfurt. He survives, and is placed under arrest.
June 25, 1979
The RAF’s Andreas Baader Commando attempts to assassinate the NATO Chief of Staff, U.S. General Alexander Haig.
July 11, 1979
The Stuttgart OLG sentences Siegfried Haag and Roland Mayer to fourteen years and twelve years in prison, respectively.
November 19, 1979
RAF members Christian Klar, Rolf Clemens Wagner, Henning Beer, and Peter-Jürgen Boock rob a bank in Zurich of an estimated 548,000 Swiss francs. Making their getaway, they shoot two police officers, and passer-by Edith Kletzhändler is killed by a ricocheting bullet. Rolf Clemens Wagner is arrested in Zurich later the same day.
1980
January 31, 1980
On the basis of testimony supplied by former RAF supporters Volker Speitel and Hans-Joachim Dellwo, the Stuttgart OLG sentences attorneys Arndt Müller and Armin Newerla to four years and eight months, and three years and six months respectively for smuggling weapons and explosives into Stammheim.
February 22, 1980
Astrid Proll is sentenced to five and a half years for bank robbery and using a forged ID, but is immediately released on the basis of time already served. RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock is arrested in Hamburg. He soon renounces the RAF.
May 5, 1980
2JM member Ingrid Barabas, RAF member Sieglinde Hofmann, and supporters Karin Kamp-Munruchow and Regine Nicolai are arrested in Paris.
June 1980
Der Minister und der Terrorist (The Minister and the Terrorist), a book-length conversation between Federal Parliamentary Secretary Gerhart Baum (FDP) and former RAF member Horst Mahler is released.
June 2, 1980
The 2JM releases a communiqué announcing its dissolution and merger with the RAF. Some 2JM members in prison will release a document distancing themselves from this fusion later in the month, but the 2JM will never claim responsibility for another action.
July 25, 1980
RAF members Juliane Plambeck, formerly of the 2JM, and Wolfgang Beer are killed in a traffic accident outside of Bietigheim-Bissingen.
July 31, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Knut Folkerts to a life sentence for three murders.
September 5, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF members Christof Wackernagel and Gerd Schneider to fifteen years in prison for attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
September 26, 1980
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Rolf Clemens Wagner to life in prison.
October 1980
RAF members Susanne Albrecht, Werner Lotze, Christine Dümlein, Monika Helbing, Ekkehard von Seckendorff, Sigrid Sternebeck, Ralf Baptist Friedrich, and Silke Maier-Witt leave the RAF. They are provided with new identities and sanctuary in East Germany. Two years later, Inge Viett and Henning Beer will join them.
1981
February 2–April 16, 1981
More than 100 political prisoners participate in the RAF prisoners’ eighth collective hunger strike, demanding association and the release of seriously ill prisoner Günter Sonnenberg.
April 16, 1981
Political prisoner Sigurd Debus, who is participating in the hunger strike although he is not a RAF member, dies of a brain hemorrhage that is the result of being force-fed. The Federal Minister of Justice agrees to association of prisoners in groups of four and an end to solitary isolation. As a result, the hungerstrike is called off.
August 4, 1981
French police officer Francis Violleau is shot and seriously injured in an exchange of fire with RAF member Inge Viett in Paris. Viett is one of the 2JM members who joined the RAF when the organizations fused.
August 31, 1981
The RAF’s Sigurd Debus Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Air Force in Ramstein injuring seventeen people and causing 7.2 million DM in damage.
September 15, 1981
The RAF’s Gudrun Ensslin Commando attacks the car carrying the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, General Frederick Kroesen, with a bazooka. The armour-plated vehicle survives the attack, and Kroesen and his wife suffer only minor injuries.
October 10, 1981
265,000 march in antiwar demonstration in Bonn, the largest demonstration in West German history.
December 4, 1981
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Stefan Wisniewski to life in prison for his role in the Schleyer kidnapping, among other things.
1982
Inge Viett and Henning Beer leave the RAF and are provided with new identities and sanctuary in East Germany.
Early 1982
RAF prisoner Verena Becker begins cooperating with the Verfassungsschutz, naming Stefan Wisniewski as the shooter in the Buback assassination. Other RAF members have already been convicted for this murder, and the Verfassungsschutz does not pursue this lead. Twenty-five years later, in 2007, a political crisis will develop around exactly this question.
May 1982
The RAF releases a major theoretical text re-evaluating their practice and opening a new phase in their discussion with the legal movement. This paper, Guerilla, Widerstand und antiimperialistische Front (The Guerilla, The Resistance, and the Anti-Imperialist Front), calls for a broad-based front involving the guerilla, the semi-legal movement, and the legal anti-imperialist movement. It becomes known as the May Paper and is hotly debated amongst supporters, some of whom see it as showing a bold new way forward, while others see it as a betrayal of some of the guerilla’s key tenets.
June 16, 1982
The Frankfurt OLG sentences RAF member Sieglinde Hofmann to fifteen years in prison for her role in planning the attempted kidnapping that led to the Ponto assassination.
October 1, 1982
The CDU proposes a constructive vote of no confidence which is supported by the FDP: the motion is carried, and two days later the Bundestag votes in a new right-wing CDU/CSU-FDP coalition cabinet, with Helmut Kohl as the chancellor.
November 10, 1982
The Düsseldorf OLG sentences RAF member Rolf Heissler to two life terms plus fifteen years in prison for the murder of a police officer and membership in a terrorist organization.
November 11, 1982
RAF members Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Adelheid Schulz are arrested at the RAF’s Heusenstamm arms depot.
November 16, 1982
RAF member Christian Klar is arrested at the RAF’s Anmühle arms depot.
December 14, 1982
The neo-nazi Hexel-Hepp Group bombs the U.S. Army Base in Hessen. Two GIs are seriously injured. Many people on the left originally applaud the action, believing it was carried out by the RZ. Both the RZ and RAF prisoner Christian Klar issue statements pointing out operational indicators that the action came from the right and criticize the superficiality of the left’s analysis of the action, establishing the difference between anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism.
1984
May 7, 1984
The Stuttgart OLG sentences RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock to three times life plus fifteen years for his role in the murders of Ponto and Schleyer.
Summer 1984
Members of the “anti-imperialist resistance” including Birgit Hogefeld and Wolfgang Grams go underground, rejuvenating a dwindling RAF.
July 2, 1984
RAF members Helmut Pohl, Christa Eckes, Stefan Frey, Ingrid Jakobsmeier, Barbara Ernst, and Ernst-Volker Staub are arrested in Frankfurt after one of them accidentally discharges a gun into the apartment below their safehouse. Police find a document entitled Acktionspapier (Action Paper), directed to members of the “anti-imperialist resistance” working within the context of the Front concept, as spelled out in the RAF’s 1982 May Paper.
November 5, 1984
The RAF robs a gun shop in Maxdorf for weapons, making off with twenty-two handguns and 2,800 rounds of ammunition.
December 1984
The first issue of the illegal RAF support newspaper Zusammen Kämpfen (Struggling Together) comes out.
December 4, 1984
RAF prisoners begin their ninth collective hunger strike, demanding association in large groups and uncensored mail and visits. Two statements are released, a shorter hunger strike statement and a longer document aimed at the support movement. Within the context of the anti-imperialist Front, dozens of armed attacks will be carried out by supporters during the seventy nine days that the prisoners will be on hunger strike.
December 18, 1984
The RAF’s Jan-Carl Raspe Commando attempts to bomb the SHAPE School, the NATO Officers’ School, in Oberammergua. The bomb is discovered and defused.
1985
1985 sees an ambitious offensive by the anti-imperialist resistance, within the framework of the RAF’s Front concept as spelled out in the 1982 May Paper. Within the first half of the year alone, there are one hundred eleven firebombings and thirty-nine bombings reported by the Minister of the Interior, and for periods of time, daily low- and medium-level attacks.
January 15, 1985
The RAF issue a bilingual joint statement with the French anti-imperialist guerilla group Action Directe entitled Pour l’unité des revolutionaires en Europe de l’ouest / Für die Einheit der Revolutionäre in Westeuropa (For the Unity of Revolutionaries in West Europe) calling for united guerilla action in West Europe.
January 20, 1985
RAF supporter Johannes Thimme is killed and Claudia Wannersdorfer is seriously injured when a bomb they are planting at the Association for the Development of Air and Space Industries in Stuttgart explodes prematurely.
January 25, 1985
Action Directe’s Elisabeth von Dyck Comma
ndo assassinates General René Audran, ambushing him as he parked his car outside his suburban Paris home. Audran was in charge of arms sales for the French Ministry of Defense.
February 1, 1985
The RAF’s Patsy O’Hara Commando assassinates arms manufacturer Ernst Zimmerman, Chairman of the MTU Board of directors. The murder remains unsolved.
February 2, 1985
The RAF sends a letter to the prisoners asking them to call off their hunger strike, saying that the mobilization it has achieved is as much as can be expected in the existing conditions.
March 13, 1985
The Düsseldorf OLG gives RAF member Adelheid Schulz 3 life sentences for her role in the Schleyer kidnapping and for membership in a terrorist organization. Rolf Clemens Wagner receives 2 life sentences, largely as a result of Peter-Jürgen Boock’s testimony.
April 1985
The illegal RAF support newspaper Zusammen Kämpfen releases an interview with the RAF addressing their common actions with Action Directe and the Front concept in general.
April 2, 1985
The Stuttgart OLG sentences RAF members Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar to 5 life sentences each in connection with every RAF action from 1977 until 1981.
August 8, 1985
In Wiesbaden, RAF members abduct 20-year-old American GI Edward Pimental in order to steal his ID card, and then execute him with a single shot to the back of the head. The joint RAF and Action Directe George Jackson Commando uses his ID card to gain entrance to the Rhein-Main U.S. Air Force Base in Frankfurt, where they then plant a bomb which causes 1 million DM in damage and kills a soldier, Frank Scarton, and a civilian employee, Becky Jo Bristol.
August 25, 1985
In a second communiqué regarding the Rhein-Main Air Base action, the RAF claims responsibility for the killing of U.S. GI Edward Pimental, whose ID card they used to gain access to the Air Base for the August 8, 1985 action. Prior to the release of this communiqué, many supporters had denounced the killing as a false flag action. The execution of Pimental, which was clearly unnecessary, will provoke much criticism from the support scene.
September 1985
The illegal RAF support newspaper Zusammen Kämpfen releases an interview with the RAF entitled An die, die mit uns kämpfen (To Those Who Struggle Alongside Us), addressing questions and criticisms that have arisen on the left in the wake of the Pimental killing.
