History of the RAF in the context of anti-imperialist movements, liberation movements in the 'Third World', student revolts
Compiled by Ron Augustin
1954
May 7 – Viet-Minh forces win the battle of Dien Bien Phu, leading to the withdrawal of France from Indochina. First larger victory by an anticolonial guerilla movement, encouraging people worldwide to create “manifold Dien Bien Phus”.
Nov 1 – Start of the armed struggle in Algeria with the establishment of the National Liberation Front FLN.
1955
Apr 18-24 – Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, leading up to the foundation of the Non-Aligned Movement. It takes up the term “Third World”, coined by French sociologists Bourdet and Sauvy, as a rallying cry.
1956
Jul 26 – Start of the armed struggle in Cuba with the attack on the Moncada Barracks.
Aug 17 – The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) is prohibited. Subsequently, some 125,000 judicial inquiries will be launched against KPD members and sympathisers.
1958
Apr 7 – Under the slogan “Ban the Bomb”, the first Easter March against nuclear armament is held in London. In the next ten years, Easter Marches will gain ground across Western Europe.
1959
Jan 1 – Fidel Castro’s guerilla takes over power in Cuba.
1960
Feb 1 – The sit-in of four black students at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro revives a tradition of sit-ins and reinvigorates the Civil Rights Movement in the USA.
Mar 21 – At a demonstration against apartheid in Sharpeville, Southafrica, 69 people are killed. Shortly after, the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) and ANC (African National Congress) take up arms.
1961
Jan 17 – Assassination of Congo’s Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba following a CIA-fostered coup.
Jan 20 – John F Kennedy becomes President of the USA. In May, he orders a substantial increase of military aid to South Vietnam and the deployment of 2,000 counterinsurgency advisers. In an attempt to isolate the newly founded National Liberation Front FLN, within two years 13 million people are resettled in concentration camps (“strategic hamlets”), and their villages and fields are destroyed.
Feb 4 – Start of the armed struggle in Angola with the liberation of prisoners by the MPLA.
Nov 6 – Following the German SDS’s participation in the ban-the-bomb movement, the SDS (Socialist German Student Association) is expelled from the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party), and membership in both organisations is declared “incompatible”.
Dec 8 – Frantz Fanon dies a few days after the publication of his book The Wretched of the Earth, which will become one of the most important texts for the revolutionary struggles of the 20th century.
1962
Jun 11-15 – Founding Convention of the US-American Students for a Democratic Society, SDS.
Jun 25 – Start of the armed struggle in Mozambique with the foundation of Frelimo.
Jul 5 – Independence of Algeria.
1963
Jan 23 – Start of the PAIGC’s armed struggle in Guinea-Bissau.
August 28 – First “March on Washington”, where 250,000 demonstrators call for “meaningful civil rights laws”. At the gathering in Washington, Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.
1964
May 28 – Foundation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation PLO.
Aug 5 – First major attack against North Vietnam by the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin.
Dec 12-18 – Congo’s Prime Minister Moise Tschombé is pelted with eggs and tomatoes by students at his visits to Munich, Dusseldorf and West Berlin.
1965
Jan 3 – Palestinian organisation Al Fatah carries out its first guerilla attacks on Israel.
Feb 7 – Start of “Operation Rolling Thunder”, the almost daily bombing of North Vietnam by US aircraft. In South Vietnam, increasingly phosphor bombs and napalm are used. .
Feb 21 – In New York, one of the country’s most important black leaders, Malcolm X, is assassinated.
Aug 25 – Bomb attack against German chemicals manufacturer Bayer in Uruguay for its implication in the Vietnam war. It is the first attack by the Tupamaros, one of the first movements to develop urban guerilla.
1966
Jan 3-15 – Tricontinental Conference in Havana.
Jan 18 – Bomb attack against a Vietnam discussion in the West Berlin Technical University’s student house.
Feb 5 – Vietnam demonstration in front of the USIS’s Amerikahaus in West Berlin, prepared by a poster action which leads to first discussions on illegality within the German SDS.
Mar 26 – In New York, 100,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam war. Throughout 1966, demonstrations against the Vietnam war are on the increase across the world.
May 16 – Start of the Cultural Revolution in China.
Jun 30 – In North Vietnam, US aircraft focus on the destruction of the Red River delta dikesystem as well as Hanoi’s and Haiphong’s supply bases. For the first time, the strategic B52 bombers are used, which from the end of August will fly daily sorties. According to the Pentagon, 79,000 bomber sorties are flown over Vietnam in 1966.
Oct 15 – Foundation of the Black Panther Party in the USA with a 10-Points Program.
Dec 1 – In Germany, the Grand Coalition of CDU (Christian Democrats) and SPD (Social Democrats) is formed.
Dec 10 – At the end of the “Vietnam Weeks” organised by the German SDS, Rudi Dutschke proposes the foundation of an extraparliamentary opposition, which came to be known as the APO.
1967
Feb 29 – Foundation of the Kommune I in West Berlin.
Apr 5 – Arrests and media hunt in connection with the “pudding attack” which the Kommune I had planned against US Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s visit to West Berlin.
Apr 15 – Under Martin Luther King’s leadership, more than 350,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam war in the “March on New York”. Throughout 1967, demonstrations against US imperialism continue around the world.
Apr 16 – Publication of Ernesto Che Guevara’s message to the Tricontinentale on the creation of “two, three, many Vietnams”.
Apr 21 – Coup by the military Junta in Greece, establishment of a NATO-sponsored military dictatorship.
May 2-10 – First session of the Russell-Tribunal in Stockholm, investigating US war crimes in Vietnam.
Jun 2 – At a demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Iran, demonstrators are beaten up brutally by police and Iranian undercover agents. Benno Ohnesorg is killed by a police officer.
Jun 5-10 – During the “Six Day War”, Israel occupies Gaza, East-Jerusalem and parts of Syria and Jordan.
Jul 15-30 – At the “Dialectics of Liberation” Congress in London, possibilities of antiimperialist struggle are discussed for two weeks.
Jul 23 – Antiwar demonstrations lead to an uprise in Newark. In confrontations with the National Guard, 27 people are killed and 1,100 injured. Riots follow in more than 50 cities.
Jul 31-Aug 10 – Conference of the Latin American Solidarity Organisation OLAS in Havana. Breaking away from the pro-Soviet communist parties, the conference advocates support and unification of armed struggles.
Oct 9 – Assassination of Ernesto Che Guevara in Bolivia.
Oct 21 – In front of the Pentagon near Washington, 250,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam war.
In West Berlin, pamflet rockets are shot at the US Army barracks, with which soldiers are called to desert. According to the Pentagon, 108,000 bomber sorties are flown over Vietnam in 1967.
1968
Jan 30 – The South Vietnamese liberation front FLN starts its Tet offensive. It will last two months and will force the US government to understand that it cannot win this war.
Feb 17-18 – In West Berlin’s Technical University, the International Vietnam Congress takes place. 12,000 people participate in the closing rally.
Feb 21 – At a counter-rally organised by the Senate of West Berlin, the Federation of Trade Unions and Springer
Newspaper Publishers, 80,000 people demonstrate against the student movement and for the US government’s Vietnam policy. Several student “suspects” are beaten up by demonstrators carrying transparents with slogans like “Dutschke People’s Enemy Number One” and “Berlin is not Saigon”.
Apr 3 – During the night, fire bombs explode in two department stores in Frankfurt. The attack is directed against alienation and consumption in capitalist society.
Apr 4 – Assassination of Martin Luther King, triggering revolts in 125 US American cities. 21,000 soldiers and 34,000 National Guards are deployed in days of confrontation. Result: 46 dead, 2,600 injured, 21,000 arrested.
Apr 11 – In an assassination attempt, Rudi Dutschke is severely wounded. In West Berlin, a “Springer-Blockade” is organised. In cities across Germany and Europe, attacks on Springer are organised, leading to heavy confrontations with the police. In Munich a demonstrator and a press photographer are killed. It takes years for Dutschke to recover from his injuries, and on December 24, 1979 he dies as a result of these.
May 5 – In Saigon, the FLN kills the First Secretary of the German Embassy, Hasso Freiherr Rüdt von Collenberg.
May 6 – After several weeks of conflict at Nanterre University, a first larger student demonstration takes place in Paris. After several strikes and the famous “Night of the Barricades” of May 10, a 24-hour general strike is held on May 13. A demonstration of one million workers and students in Paris leads to the occupation of Sorbonne University. For two weeks, 10 million workers are on strike. Factory occupations and demonstrations, leading to seven deaths, last until mid-June. Mass demonstrations, street fights, university and factory occupations occur all over the world in the months between May and August 1968.
May 11 – In Bonn 70,000 people demonstrate against new “Emergency Laws” in the making. Nevertheless, these will be issued by parliament on May 30.
Jul 23 – On the way from Rome to Tel Aviv, the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP for the first time hijacks an El Al plane and takes it to Algeria. 24 Palestinians are freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for the passengers.
Aug 21 – In Prag, Warsaw Pact troops suppress the “Czech Spring”.
September – Foundation of the Gauche Prolétarienne in France. Its activities remain largely restricted to the publication of an illegal newspaper.
Sep 13 – In a speech at the 23rd SDS delegates conference in Frankfurt the concept of the “Action Council for the Liberation of Women” is presented. As the conference continues without discussion, a tomato is thrown at one of the SDS leaders. In the following months, Action and Women’s Councils are founded throughout Germany.
Sep 26 – In Essen, the new German Communist Party, DKP, is founded.
Nov 4 – In West Berlin, anger erupts during the “Tegeler Weg Battle”, when attorney Horst Mahler is threatened with exclusion from the bar because of his participation in the “Springer-Blockade”.
Nov 8 – Beate Klarsfeld slaps Chanceler Georg Kiesinger in order to draw attention to his nazi past. She is sentenced to one year in prison.
1969
Jan 20 – Richard Nixon becomes President of the USA. His Security Advisor will be Henry Kissinger, his Defense Advisor Donald Rumsfeld. They will launch the “Vietnamisation” of the war in Vietnam, implying the gradual retreat of US troops and the corresponding transfer of responsibilities to the South Vietnamese army. In April, at 543,000, the number of US troops in Vietnam reaches its highest level in the history of the war.
Feb 26 – Failed bomb attack against the visit of Richard Nixon in West Berlin. Demonstrations against his visit and three months later against a US military parade are violent but remain small.
Jul 15-21 – “Red Prison Week” and “Prison Camp” in Ebrach near Nuremberg.
Jul 27 – Seven German army draft resisters, who fled to West Berlin because of its special status, are illegally arrested and deported to West Germany.
Aug 12-15 – Street fights in Derry in Northern Ireland lead to the Provisional IRA’s resumption of armed struggle.
Aug 29 – On the way from Rome to Athens, a TWA plane is hijacked by a PFLP commando led by Leila Khaled and re-routed via Haifa to Damascus. The plane is blown up and the passengers are exchanged against two Syrian prisoners of war in Israel.
Sep 2 – In Germany, spontaneous strikes burst out in the mining, metal, energy and car industries.
Sep 6 – Four airplanes are hijacked by the PFLP. Three planes are blown up at an airstrip near Amman. The hijack of one El Al plane on the way from Amsterdam to New York ends with the killing of Nicaraguan Patrick Arguello and the arrest of Leila Khaled in London. Little later, Khaled will be freed by another PFLP plane hijack. In total, Palestinian organisations are carrying out some 3,000 guerilla operations against Israel in 1969.
Oct 12 – Bomb attack by the Portuguese guerilla group LUAR at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, damaging two frigates built for Portugal’s colonial wars.
Oct 21 – In Germany, a Coalition Government is formed by SPD and FDP, with Willy Brandt as Chancelor.
Nov 4 – Carlos Marighella is shot by police in São Paulo. The following year, his Manual of the Urban Guerilla will be published in several languages.
Nov 12 – Journalist Seymour Hersh discloses the My Lai massacre of March 1968.
Nov 15 – “National Mobilisation To End The War”: more than one million people demonstrate in Washington, 100,000 in San Francisco.
Nov 19 – First attack by french clandestine group Nouvelle Résistance Populaire, which will dissolve four years later at the same time as the Gauche Prolétarienne.
Dec 12 – Amidst the culmination of labour struggles during Italy’s “Hot Autumn”, four banks in Rome and Milan are bombed. At the explosions in Milan’s Rural Bank, 16 people are killed and 84 injured. A huge media campaign renders the Left responsible for the attacks. On December 15, the accused anarchist Pinelli “falls” out of the window of Superintendent Calabresi’s office. Only years later it will be revealed that the attacks were perpetrated in the framework of the “strategy of tension” by intelligence agencies reporting to NATO’s secret organisation Gladio.
1970
Feb 12 – In Heidelberg, the Socialist Patients Collective (SPK) is founded.
Mar 21 – The German SDS decides to dissolve itself. One of the last SDS chapters in Heidelberg will be forbidden three months later.
Mar 31 – In Guatemala, German Ambassador Karl Graf von Spreti is abducted by the FAR guerilla movement. They demand the liberation of prisoners from FAR. After the government’s refusal, von Spreti is killed on April 5.
Apr 30 – President Nixon announces the US invasion of Cambodia, leading to protests and demonstrations worldwide.
May 4-14 – At demonstrations at Kent State and Jackson State Universities, 6 students are killed the US National Guard.
May 14 – In an operation at the Central Institute for Social Affairs in West Berlin, Andreas Baader is liberated from captivity. Over the next few weeks, two declarations are published in the Agit 883 journal with the dictum “Start the Armed Resistance!”.
May 20 – In Germany, a legal pardon is issued for thousands who had been sentenced for “demonstration offences”. This so-called “amnesty” was an SPD election promise to defuse the Student Movement. At the same time, legislators are working on what is to become the “radicals decree”, with which thousands will be kept from public service jobs.
Jun 8 – The first people of the later RAF depart for a six weeks’ military training in Jordan.
Sep 15 – Formation of the Red Brigades in Italy. First armed attacks on foremen and police informers at Fiat, Siemens and Pirelli.
Sep 17 – Beginning of the “Black September” massacres in Jordan. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Palestinians are killed by Jordan military.
Sep 19 – In Frankfurt one of the first housing squats takes place.
Sep 29 – In West Berlin three banks are robbed simultaneously. A month earlier, a supermarket had been robbed in order to finance the underground movements.
Oct 8 – In West Berlin, Ingrid Schubert, Brigitte Asdonk, Monika Berberich, Irene Goergens and Horst Mahler are arrested as the first ones from the Red Army Faction. Months later they will be convicted to sentences of 6 1/2 to 14 years in prison.
Oct 30 - Nov 11 – Bomb attacks by guerilla groups ARA and Brigadas Revolucionarias against NATO bases in Portugal.
Dec 1 – Abduction of German consul Eugen Beihl by ETA, forcing the Spanish government to turn the death sentences at the Burgos trials into prison sentences.
Dec 3-22 – Eric Grusdat, Ali Jansen and three others are arrested.
1971
March – Foundation of the clandestine organisation MIL in Spain. After the arrest of several of its members, among whom Salvador Puig Antich, in September 1973, the organisation is dissolved.
Apr 1 – In Hamburg, ELN-Member Monika Ertl kills Bolivian consul Roberto Quintanilla Pereira, one of the officers responsible for Che Guevara’s death.
Apr 24-May 6 – Following Vietnam demonstrations, martial law is proclaimed over Washington DC. More than 12,000 people are arrested.
May 1 – At May 1 demonstrations across Germany, the RAF’s first journal is distributed, The Concept of Urban Guerilla.
May 6 –Astrid Proll is arrested in Hamburg. Little later she will be imprisoned in Cologne prison’s dead wing.
Jun 21 – Helmut Pohl is arrested in Stuttgart. In 1973 he will be released from prison for the first time.
Jun 24 – Police undertake raids and arrests against the SPK. July 13, the SPK will be dissolved.
Jul 15 – Petra Schelm is killed and Werner Hoppe is arrested during the first larger sweep search against the RAF, “Operation Kora” in Hamburg particularly aimed at finding Ulrike Meinhof.
Sep 9-13 – Prison revolt in New York’s Attica prison. 43 prisoners are killed by police.
Oct 22 – In Hamburg, police officer Norbert Schmid is killed during an attempt to control three people. Margrit Schiller is arrested.
Dec 4 – At a raid in West Berlin, Georg von Rauch is killed by police. Two days later, an empty hospital building will be squatted and turned into the Georg-von-Rauch-House.
1972
January – Several militant groups merge into the June 2nd Movement.
Jan 28 – Chaired by Chanceler Willy Brandt, the Conference of Ministers of Interior Affairs issues the “radicals decree”, with which more than 300,000 applicants and employees in public service will be screened.
Jan 30 – Bloody Sunday in Derry , Northern Ireland: 14 people are killed by British military.
Feb 2 – Bomb attack on the British Yachtclub of West Berlin by the June 2nd Movement. Attacks on Police and the Judiciary are to follow in March and May.
Feb 6 – The Palestinian organisation Black September destroys three Gulf Oil installations in the Netherlands. The same day, they kill five Jordanians in Germany who were accused of collaboration with Israel. Two days later, they carry out a bomb attack on a Hamburg factory manufacturing motor parts for Israel. On February 22, they destroy an Exxon pipeline near Hamburg.
Mar 1 – In Herrenberg near Tübingen, 17 year old apprentice Richard Epple is killed by police during a raid against the RAF.
Mar 2 – In Augsburg, police arrest Carmen Roll and kill Thomas Weissbecker.
Mar 3 – In Hamburg, police arrest Manfred Grashof and Wolfgang Grundmann. At the ensuing shootout, Manfred Grashof is injured and police superinspector Hans Eckhardt is killed.
Mar 14 – Near Milan, publisher and founder of the GAP (Partisan Action Group) Giangiacomo Feltrinelli is killed by a prematurely detonated bomb.
Apr 16 – Start of a two-months large scale bombing campaign against rural areas in North Vietnam by half the US Airforce’s air fleet.
May 1 – At May 1 demonstrations, the RAF’s second journal is distributed, Urban Guerilla and Class Struggle.
May 8 – President Nixon orders the mining of all harbours and waterways in North Vietnam.
May 11 – Bomb attack on the US Army’s 5th Corps Headquarters in Frankfurt by the RAF’s Petra Schelm Commando. US officer Paul Bloomquist is killed, 13 soldiers are injured.
May 12 – Bomb attacks on police headquarters in Augsburg and Munich by the RAF’s Thomas Weissbecker Commando. Five policemen are injured.
May 15 – Bomb attack on Federal Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg’s car in Karlsruhe by the RAF’s Manfred Grashof Commando. Buddenberg’s wife is injured.
May 19 – The Weather Underground carry out a bomb attack at the Pentagon.
May 19 – At a bomb attack on the Springer premises in Hamburg by the RAF’s June 2nd Commando, 17 employees are injured.
May 24 – Bomb attack on the 7th US Army’s Heidelberg Headquarters by the RAF’s July 15th Commando. Three US soldiers are killed, five injured.
May 31 – In Teheran three bombs explode against the visit of Nixon and Kissinger, one against the USIS Building, one under the car of a US military consultant, and one at the site of Nixon’s visit.
May 31 – The German Federal Police, BKA, initiates the largest sweep search against the RAF, “Operation Washout”.
May 31 – A recorded message by Ulrike Meinhof is played at a Red Aid teach-in in Frankfurt.
Jun 1 – Jan Raspe, Holger Meins and Andreas Baader are arrested in Frankfurt. Andreas Baader is injured at the ensuing shootout.
Jun 2 – Full-scale alarm in Stuttgart following a smear campaign in the media using a forged statement of May 27 claiming that the RAF would have three bombs explode in the city. The group’s statement of May 29, denying its involvement, is suppressed by the media.
Jun 7-15 – Gudrun Ensslin is arrested in Hamburg, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Bernhard Braun are arrested in West Berlin, Ulrike Meinhof and Gerhard Müller in Hannover.
Jun 25 – The British tradesman Ian McLeod is killed by police in Stuttgart during a raid against the RAF.
Jun 29 – Katharina Hammerschmidt, who was wanted for supporting the RAF, surrenders to police. She dies of a tumor on June 29, 1975, in a West Berlin hospital, as a result of failing treatment in prison until her release in January 1974.
Jul 9 – Irmgard Möller and Klaus Jünschke are arrested in Offenbach.
Jul 26 – In Hamburg, Werner Hoppe is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Aug 5 – The Palestinian organisation Black September destroys a petrol depot in Triest.
Sep 5 – Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich are taken hostage by a Black September commando. Instead of following the demand for liberation of prisoners from Israeli jails, a diversion takes place at Furstenfeldbruck airport, in which the hostages and one police officer die. Three of the eight Black September members survive and will be freed from prison by a plane hijack on October 29. On September 8, in “retaliation” to the Munich attack, the Israeli airforce bombs ten Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. On September 16, three Israeli tank convoys destroy more than ten villages in South Lebanon. On October 24, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad starts a series of letter bomb attacks, killing or wounding several Palestinians across the world.
Sep 26 – Establishment of the GSG9, the German border police’s “antiterror unit”.
Oct 3 – The German government outlaws the Palestinian Workers Union GUPA and the Palestinian Students Union GUPS. Hundreds of Palestinians are prosecuted or expelled.
November – Distribution of the RAF’s third journal, Black September’s attack in Munich – On the strategy of antiimperialist struggle.
1973
Jan 17-Feb 16 – First hungerstrike of the prisoners from the RAF. Forty political prisoners demand the abolition of isolation detention and the abolition of the dead wing in Cologne-Ossendorf. For five days, February 9 through 14, Andreas Baader is kept without drinking water. On February 9, Ulrike Meinhof is moved from the dead wing to another cell.
Feb 9-12 – Solidarity hungerstrike by attorneys of prisoners from the RAF in front of the Federal Court in Karlsruhe.
May 8-Jun 29 – Second hungerstrike. Eighty political prisoners demand the abolition of isolation detention. For ten days, from May 24 to June 4, Andreas Baader is kept without drinking water. Across Germany, local Committees Against Isolation-Torture are established.
May 23 – The violent clearing by a mobile police unit of the squatted house Eckhoffstrasse 39 in Hamburg and the ensuing criminalisation of the squatters becomes a turning point in Germany’s housing struggle.
Jul 13 – At the request of the Federal Prosecutor, Ulrike Meinhof is ordered to have her brain examined by means of a scintigraphy, in case of resistance also under forced anaesthesia. On August 28, the request is withdrawn after numerous public protests.
Jul 16 – BKA raids in the cells of the prisoners from the RAF.
Jul 24 – Ron Augustin is arrested in Lingen.
Sep 11 – US-supported military coup in Chile.
Oct 6-22 – Arab-Israeli war, start of a five months oil embargo that will lead to the restructuring of the global oil market.
Nov 16-17 – The first attacks by the Revolutionary Cells, the RZ, are attacks against two ITT buildings, for the company’s involvement in the military coup in Chile.
Nov 17 – Following an uprising at the Polytechneion in Athens, 24 students are killed.
Nov 22 – In West Berlin, Ali Jansen is sentenced to 10 years in prison.
December – Foundation of the Groupes d’Action Révolutionnaire Internationaliste, GARI, which can be counted among the predecessors of Action Directe.
Dec 20 – With the “Operation Ogro”, ETA’s Txikia Commando kills Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid.
Dec 21 – Ulrike Meinhof is again transferred to the dead wing of Cologne-Ossendorf prison. On February 5, 1974, Gudrun Ensslin is taken to the dead wing. They will stay there until their transfer to Stammheim on April 28, 1974.
1974
Feb 4 – Arrest of Helmut Pohl, Ilse Stachowiak, Christa Eckes and Eberhard Becker in Hamburg, Margrit Schiller, Kai Allnach and Wolfgang Beer in Frankfurt, Axel Achterrath and Ekkehard Blenk in Amsterdam.
Feb 4 – Astrid Proll is released because of her physical and mental condition, and flees to friends in the UK until she’ll be arrested again on September 15, 1978. On February 22, 1980, she is sentenced to 5 1/2 years and released.
Mar 15-May 28 – The media are spreading rumours that the RAF would have planned to commit rocket attacks on soccer stadiums during the World Cup and to poison a city’s water supplies with cyanide. The rumours are denied by the prisoners from the RAF in a statement during the trial of Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Bernhard Braun.
Apr 25 – In Portugal, Caetano’s dictatorship is ended by a military coup that will be known as the “Carnation Revolution”. Between June 25 and November 1, 1974, the Portuguese colonies obtain independence.
May 16 – Chancelor Willy Brandt steps down. His successor is Helmut Schmidt.
May 21 – Taxidriver Günther Jendrian is killed by police in Munich during a raid against the RAF.
May 31 – Siegfried Buback succeeds Ludwig Martin as Germany’s Chief Federal Prosecutor.
Jul 23 – After a failed coup in Cyprus, the Greek military Junta falls. Greece’s parliamentary republic is re-instated on December 13.
Aug 9 – US President Nixon steps down after the Watergate scandal. His successor is Gerald Ford. Ford proclaims legal immunity for Nixon and a limited amnesty for those who escaped military draft during the Vietnam war by hiding or emigrating.
Aug 30 – In West Berlin, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Bernhard Braun are sentenced to each 4 1/2 years.
Sep 13 – Third hungerstrike, until February 5, 1975. In the trial of Andreas Baader’s liberation, Ulrike Meinhof reads the hungerstrike demands. They are published, together with her declaration in trial and a provisory fighting program for prisoners, as the RAF’s fourth journal.
Sep 27 – In a public statement by Monika Berberich in the name of the prisoners, Horst Mahler is expelled from the RAF.
Nov 9 – Holger Meins dies during the hungerstrike in Wittlich prison. Two days later 15.000 people demonstrate in West Berlin against Holger Meins’ death and in support of the hungerstrike. On Nov 18, More than 5.000 people attend his funeral. For days, protests against his death are marked by more than 50 demonstrations and riots across Germany and Europe.
Nov 10 – West Berlin’s Chief Judge Günter von Drenkmann is killed by a commando of the June 2nd Movement.
Nov 13 – The PLO obtains UN Observer Status and Yasser Arafat holds his first speech at the UN General Assembly.
Nov 26 – Nationwide man hunt in Germany with numerous road blocks and house searches.
Nov 29 – In West Berlin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof are sentenced to 14 and 8 years in prison.
Dec 7 – Bomb attack at the Central Station of Bremen. Both the RAF and the RZ dissociate themselves from the attack.
Dec 19 – The Brigades Internationales kill the Military Attaché of the uruguayan Embassy in Paris.
1975
Feb 17-Apr 24 – At a trial in a special court room annexed to Buckeburg’s prison, legal procedures against Ron Augustin are sped up. He is sentenced to 6 years in prison.
Feb 18 – The first occupation of the Whyl construction site is the start of a large movement against nuclear power plants, which in the years to follow mobilises mass demonstrations of up to 100,000 people in Brokdorf, Kalkar and Gorleben.
Feb 27 – West Berlin’s CDU Chairman Peter Lorenz is kidnapped by the June 2nd Movement. In exchange for Lorenz, five prisoners are liberated.
Apr 13 – Start of the civil war in Lebanon which will last until 1991 at least, and which to a large extent will determine PLO policy in the years to follow.
Apr 22 – A court in Stuttgart excludes attorney Klaus Croissant from defending Andreas Baader. On May 2 and 13, also Kurt Groenewold and Hans-Christian Ströbele are excluded from Andreas Baader’s defense. In November, other attorneys are excluded from defending their clients.
Apr 24 – The German Embassy in Stockholm is occupied by the Holger Meins Commando, who demand the liberation of 26 prisoners from the RAF. Embassy officers Heinz Hillegaart and Baron Andreas von Mirbach are killed. The German Government ignores the demands. An attempted police raid is followed by an explosion, and one of the commando’s members, Ulrich Wessel, is killed. Hanna Krabbe, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Bernd Rössner and Lutz Taufer are arrested. Siegfried Hausner is heavily wounded by rifle butts and dies on May 4 in Stammheim prison. Immediately after the start of the occupation, all prisoners from the RAF are searched and deprived from their radios, newspapers and any contacts.
Apr 30 – Victory of the FLN in Vietnam following the siege of Saigon.
May 9 – At a shootout in Cologne, Werner Sauber and police officer Walter Pauli die. Karl-Heinz Roth and Roland Otto are heavily wounded and arrested.
May 10 – Attorney Siegfried Haag is arrested briefly. The next day, he decides to go underground.
May 16 – In the run-up to the Stammheim trial, the media spread rumours that the RAF would plan a poison attack against the federal parliament. Files discovered in 2009 show that in 1975 the Federal Police (BKA) had developed its “Principles of Desinformation for the Fight against Terrorism”.
May 21 – Start of the trial against Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof and Jan Raspe in Stuttgart-Stammheim.
Jun 23 – Attorneys Klaus Croissant and Hans-Christian Ströbele are arrested, their offices and appartments as well as those of attorney Marieluise Becker are searched, and loads of legal files for the Stammheim trial are seized. Legal procedures against the attorneys are justified with their public appearances in the media. Few days prior to the arrests, attorney Croissant had organised a press conference with regard to the death of Siegfried Hausner.
Sep 2 – Start of the trial against Manfred Grashof, Klaus Jünschke and Wolfgang Grundmann in Kaiserslautern.
Sep 13-Nov 12 – Bomb attacks at the Central Stations of Hamburg, Nuremberg and Cologne. Both the RAF and the RZ dissociate themselves from the attacks.
Nov 20 – Spanish dictator Franco dies. A three-year “transition period from fascism to democracy” starts.
Dec 14 – Irish prisoners in England start a hungerstrike. Fe 12, 1976, after two months of hungerstrike, Frank Stagg dies.
Dec 16-24 – Across Germany, bookshops, publishers, printers and private apartments are searched at the instigation of the Federal Police and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in order to seize literature “propagating violence”.
1976
Jan 13-20 – Declarations by the defendants in the Stammheim trial.
Mar 16 – In Hamburg, Irmgard Möller and Gerhard Müller are sentenced to 4 1/2 and 10 years in prison. Gerhard Müller will be released before his term, Irmgard Möller will be charged another time and sentenced to life.
May 1 – In Paris, the Brigades Internationales kill Bolivian Ambassador Zentano Anaya, one of the officers responsible for Che Guevara’s death.
May 9 – In a cell of Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, Ulrike Meinhof is found dead. In the following weeks, numerous bomb attacks, demonstrations and riots protesting her death take place across Germany and Europe. In the prison of Frankfurt-Preungesheim, 36 women protest against her death with a three-day hungerstrike.
Jun 18 – Following a firebomb attack on the office of Margrit Schiller’s state attorney in Hamburg, his secretary Johanna Keller dies. Later, a firebomb attack is committed against the car of a state attorney in the Dusseldorf trial. The prisoners from the RAF dissociate themselves from these attacks.
Jun 27 – A mixed commando of RZ and PFLP-EO hijacks a plane coming from Tel Aviv via Athens. They demand the liberation of 53 prisoners from Israel, Kenya, France, Switzerland and Germany. On July 4, an Israeli military squad raids the plane at Entebbe airport. The commando’s four members, three supporters, three hostages, the squad’s commander and 45 Ugandan soldiers are killed. Immediately after the start of the hijack, all prisoners from the RAF are searched and deprived from their radios, newspapers and any contacts.
Jul 7 – Four prisoners from the RAF and the June 2nd Movement escape from Lehrter Strasse prison in West Berlin. Monika Berberich is arrested again on July 21.
Jul 16 – Attorney Croissant is again arrested, after he announced the establishment of an International Commission for the Examination of Ulrike Meinhof’s Death.
Jul 18 – Foundation of the GRAPO as the armed wing of the Spanish PCE(r) established one year earlier.
Aug 18-19 – Bookshops and publishing houses across Germany are raided for “suspicion of support to a criminal organisation”. Numerous books and magazines are seized.
Nov 30 – Siegfried Haag and Roland Mayer are arrested near Butzbach.
Dec 14 – Following a bank robbery in Vienna, Waltraud Liewald is arrested. Two months later, she will be sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.
December – Irmgard Möller is transferred from Lübeck to Stammheim prison.
1977
Jan 23 – At the Stammheim trial, Chief Judge Theodor Prinzing is expelled from his position for partiality, following the 85th legal request to do so.
Feb 8 – Brigitte Mohnhaupt is released from prison.
Mar 17 – Local Secretaries of the Interior and Justice Departments, Karl Schieß and Traugott Bender, admit that bugs installed by intelligence agencies BND and Verfassungsschutz have been used to eavesdrop the prisoners in Stammheim prison. They have the media spread rumours that the prisoners in Stammheim would have planned kidnaps at children’s playing grounds.
Mar 29-May 1 – Fourth hungerstrike. The prisoners from the RAF demand to be regrouped into groups large enough to allow for social interaction.
Apr 7 – Chief Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and two attendants are killed in Karlsruhe by the RAF’s Ulrike Meinhof Commando. Immediately, all prisoners from the RAF are searched and deprived from their radios, newspapers and any contacts for several days.
Apr 13 – During a raid against the RAF near Lahn-Wetzlar, shepherd Helmut Schlaudraff is killed by police.
Apr 28 – In the Stammheim trial, the three remaining defendants are sentenced to life in prison.
Apr 28 – Bomb attack at the Federal Chamber of Physicians in Cologne, the first attack by the female guerilla group “Rote Zora”, who emerged from the RZ.
May 3 – At a shootout in Singen, Günter Sonnenberg is seriously injured by a shot in the head. Verena Becker is arrested.
May 13 – Irene Goergens is released from prison.
Jun 2 – At a trial in Kaiserslautern, Manfred Grashof and Klaus Jünschke are sentenced to life, Wolfgang Grundmann to four years in prison.
Jul 1 – The RAF captures several hand guns at a hold-up in an arms shop in Frankfurt.
Jul 4 – Wolfgang Beer, Helmut Pohl and Werner Hoppe are moved from Hamburg to Stammheim prison.
Jul 11 – Attorney Klaus Croissant quits Germany and requests political asylum in France. He will be arrested on September 30 and expelled to Germany where he will be sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Jul 20 – In Dusseldorf, Hanna Krabbe, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Lutz Taufer and Bernd Rössner are each sentenced to two life sentences.
Jul 30 – The RAF kills Dresdner Bank President Jürgen Ponto, following an attempt to kidnap him. Immediately, all prisoners from the RAF are searched and deprived from their radios, newspapers and any contacts.
Aug 9-Sep 2 – After a number of provocations and an assault on the group of prisoners in Stammheim, the prisoners from the RAF hold their fifth hungerstrike. The group in Stammheim, which had been enlarged a few months earlier, is reduced again.
Aug 15 – Bomb attack on the office of the attorneys in Stuttgart. The office had been searched several times and was under permanent police observation.
Aug 25 – In Karlsruhe, a rocket launching pad is found. It was directed at the Federal Prosecutor’s building as a “warning” by the RAF.
Aug 29 – Germany’s Federal Prosecutor orders the seizure of legal documents addressed at the European Commission for Human Rights in Strassburg, that were to be delivered before the expiration of the deadline.
Aug 30 – In Stuttgart, attorney Armin Newerla is arrested. Further legal documents are seized.
Sep 5 – In Cologne, the President of the German Employers Federation, Hanns Martin Schleyer, is abducted by the RAF’s Siegfried Hausner Commando. His driver and three bodyguards are killed. Immediately, all prisoners from the RAF are isolated, searched and excluded from any contact in a “contact ban” that will be legalised by law from September 28 and that will last for more than six weeks. The Government refuses to meet the demands for liberation of ten prisoners from the RAF.
Sep 12 – Steve Biko is killed in a South African prison.
Sep 22 – Following a shootout in Utrecht in the Netherlands, police officer Arie Kranenburg is killed and Knut Folkerts is arrested. Three months later, Knut Folkerts will be sentenced to 20 years in prison. Later, he will be extradited to Germany.
Sep 28 – In Hamburg, Wolfgang Beer, Christa Eckes and Helmut Pohl are sentenced to 4 1/2, 7 and 5 years in prison.
Sep 30 – In Stuttgart, attorney Arndt Müller is arrested. The Stuttgart attorneys office’s remaining documents are seized.
Oct 13 – The Palestinian Martyr Halimeh Commando hijacks a Lufthansa plane with the demand for liberation of prisoners from the RAF. On October 17, flight captain Jürgen Schumann is killed. The plane is raided by a German GSG9 squad and three of the four Palestinians are killed.
Oct 18 – In their cells in the prison of Stuttgart-Stammheim, Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin are found dead, Jan Raspe is found dieing, and Irmgard Möller is found wounded.
Oct 19 – The RAF’s Siegfried Hausner Commando kills Hanns Martin Schleyer.
Nov 9 – In Austria, entrepreneur Walter Palmers is kidnapped by the June 2nd Movement. He will be released for a ransom of 30 million Schillings (2.3 million Euros).
Nov 11 – Christoph Wackernagel and Gerd Schneider are arrested in Amsterdam.
Nov 12 – In an isolated cell of Munich-Stadelheim prison, Ingrid Schubert is found dead.
Dec 28 – At a trial in Stuttgart-Stammheim, Verena Becker is sentenced to life in prison.
1978
Jan 21 – Christine Kuby is arrested in Hamburg.
Feb 26 – An eavesdrop operation by German intelligence agency BfV against nuclear physicist Klaus Traube, because of presumed sympathies with the RAF, leads to a government crisis.
Mar 10-Apr 20 – Sixth collective hungerstrike of the prisoners from the RAF.
Mar 16 – In Rome, DC politician and former Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped by the Red Brigades. He will be killed on May 9 when his exchange against prisoners from the BR fail.
Apr 14 – In Germany, separating windows for visits to prisoners are decreed by law.
Apr 26 – In Stuttgart-Stammheim, Günter Sonnenberg is sentenced to two life sentences.
May 11-12 – Sieglinde Hofmann, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Rolf Clemens Wagner and Peter-Jürgen Boock are arrested in Yugoslavia. Wenn the German government refuses to exchange them against eight exiled Croats, they are freed on November 17. Stefan Wisniewski is arrested at Paris Orly airport.
Jun 6 – German Minister of Interior Affairs Werner Maihofer steps down after the Traube scandal. His successor is Gerhart Baum.
Jul 25 – “The hole of Celle”: with explosives, a hole is blown in the wall around Celle prison. Only in 1986 the operation is revealed to be an attempt by intelligence agencies to fake a prison break and use prisoners and their contact persons to get at wanted persons. Moreover, the operation is used for a campaign for the use of coercive detention against political prisoners.
Aug 4 – Wolfgang Beer is released from prison. On November 6, he and 11 other militants occupy the Frankfurt office of press agency DPA, to transmit a statement on the then critical health situation of prioners Karl-Heinz Dellwo and Werner Hoppe. All participants in the occupation are arrested and sentenced to one year in prison.
Sep 6 – Willy-Peter Stoll is killed by two police officers in Dusseldorf.
Sep 24 – After a shootout in Dortmund, Angelika Speitel and Michael Knoll are arrested. Police officer Hans-Wilhelm Hansen is killed, Michael Knoll dies of his injuries on October 8.
1979
Feb 8 – Werner Hoppe is released from prison.
Feb 16 – In Stuttgart-Stammheim, attorney Klaus Croissant is sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison and 4 years exclusion from practicing as an attorney.
Apr 20-Jun 26 – Seventh collective hungerstrike of the prisoners from the RAF.
May 1 – The first armed attack by french organisation Action Directe, which is formed by militants from different legal and illegal structures.
May 2 – At a trial in Hamburg, Christine Kuby is sentenced to life in prison.
May 4 – Elisabeth von Dyck is killed by three police officers in Nuremberg.
May 31 – At a trial in Stuttgart, Irmgard Möller is sentenced to life, Bernhard Braun to 12 years in prison.
Jun 9 – At his arrest in Frankfurt, Rolf Heissler is seriously injured by a shot in the head.
Jun 25 – Bomb attack in Brussels on NATO Supreme Commander Alexander Haig by the RAF’s Andreas Baader Commando. General Haig survives.
Jul 11 – At a trial in Stuttgart, Siegfried Haag and Roland Mayer are sentenced to 14 and 12 years in prison.
Sep 25 – Helmut Pohl is released from prison.
Nov 19 – Following a bank robbery in Zurich and an ensuing shootout, Rolf Clemens Wagner is arrested. A passer-by is killed by a ricochet bullet.
Nov 30 – In Dusseldorf, Angelika Speitel is sentenced to life in prison.
Dec 19 – In Stuttgart, Siegfried Haag is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
1980
Jan 31 – In Stuttgart-Stammheim, attorneys Arndt Müller and Armin Newerla are sentenced to four years and eight months and three years and six months, respectively.
Mar 7 – Ron Augustin is released from prison and expelled to Holland. He is not allowed back into Germany until 1994.
Apr 3 – During a raid against the RAF near Neuss, sound technician Manfred Perder is killed by accident by a BKA sharpshooter.
May 5 – In Paris, Sieglinde Hofmann is arrested together with four women of the June 2nd Movement: Ingrid Barabass, Karin Kamp-Münichow, Carola Magg, Regina Nicolai.
May 6 – A demonstration against the army in Bremen is the prelude to a large antiwar movement which will last into the second half of the 1980s.
Jun 2 – The June 2nd Movement declares its merger with the RAF. Three prisoners from the June 2nd Movement dissociate themselves from this decision.
Jul 25 – Wolfgang Beer and Juliane Plambeck die in a car crash near Bietigheim-Bissingen.
Jul 31 – In Stuttgart, Knut Folkerts is sentenced to two life sentences.
Sep 5 – In Dusseldorf, Christof Wackernagel and Gerd Schneider are sentenced to 15 years in prison each.
Sep 22 – Beginning of the war between Iraq and Iran, which will last until August 20, 1988, and will take more than one million lives.
Sep 26 – In Dusseldorf, Rolf Clemens Wagner is sentenced to life in prison.
1981
Jan 22 – Peter-Jürgen Boock is arrested in Hamburg. Ever since, he is instrumental in spreading crazy stories on the RAF.
Feb 6 – Eighth hungerstrike by more than one hundred political prisoners in Germany. The hungerstrike is stopped on April 16, when the Government promises that no prisoner will remain in isolation. The same day the announcement is made that prisoner Sigurd Debus died.
Mar 1-Oct 3 – Hungerstrike of the prisoners from the IRA in Northern Ireland. In this hungerstrike, 10 prisoners die: Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Patsy O’Hara, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee and Mickey Devine.
Aug 31 – Bomb attack at the US Airforce’s European Headquarters in Ramstein by the RAF’s Sigurd Debus Commando. 14 persons are injured.
Sep 15 – Grenade attack in Heidelberg on US Commander Frederick Kroesen by the RAF’s Gudrun Ensslin Commando. General Kroesen’s armoured car is hit, but he survives.
Oct 6 – Start of the mobilisation against the Frankfurt airport extension “Startbahn West”, which will last till 1987. At the construction site there will be demonstrations of up to 150,000 people.
Dec 4 – In Dusseldorf, Stefan Wisniewski is sentenced to life in prison.
1982
May 1 – Distribution of the RAF journal Guerilla, Resistance and Antiimperialist Front.
Jun 13-Sep 13 – Occupation of Beirut by the Israeli army.
Jun 16 – In Frankfurt, Sieglinde Hofmann is sentenced to 15 years in prison. The women arrested with her are sentenced to 5 to 6 years in prison.
Aug 21 – In Lebanon, the Multinational Force is formed by NATO troops from the USA, France, Italy and the UK, to control the PLO’s retreat from Lebanon.
Sep 15-16 – Massacre in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.
Oct 1 – In Germany, a Coalition Government of CDU (Christian Democrats) and FDP (Liberals) is formed, with Helmut Kohl as Chancelor.
Nov 10 – In Dusseldorf, Rolf Heissler is sentenced to two life sentences and 15 years in prison.
Nov 11-16 – Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Heidi Schulz and Christian Klar are arrested at forestry depots near Frankfurt and Hamburg. In all, police find eight depots with weaponry and papers.
1983
Mar 1 – Gisela Dutzi is arrested in Darmstadt.
Jun 25 – During a demonstration in Krefeld against US Vicepresident Bush’s visit, some succeed in breaking police barriers and throwing stones at Bush’s convoy.
1984
May 7 – In Stuttgart, Peter-Jürgen Boock is sentenced to three life sentences and 15 years in prison, which will later be reduced to one life sentence.
Jun 22 – Manuela Happe is arrested in Deizisau near Stuttgart.
Jul 2 – In Frankfurt, Helmut Pohl, Ingrid Jakobsmeier, Christa Eckes, Stefan Frey, Ernst Volker Staub and Barbara Ernst are arrested.
Oct 2 – Start of a series of bomb attacks by the Belgian CCC, which lasts until their arrests in December 1985.
Nov 5 – The RAF captures several hand guns, rifles and ammunition with a hold-up at an arms shop in Maxdorf near Ludwigshafen.
December – The first issue of the journal Zusammen Kämpfen (Fighting Together) is published. The journal contains statements by the RAF and “antiimperialist resistance” groups, and will be continued till August 1990 as a clandestine project. After many demonstrations and occupations, like for the support of the prisoners’ demands, legal militants increasingly organise themselves in clandestine structures and, particularly between 1983 and 1990, commit bomb attacks of their own as well.
Dec 4 – Ninth collective hungerstrike of political prisoners in Germany, until February 3, 1985.
Dec 18 – The RAF’s Jan Raspe Commando parks a car loaded with explosives near the NATO Officers School in Oberammergau. The explosives are defused before they can explode.
1985
Jan 15 – Joint statement of the RAF and the French Action Directe: “For the Unitity of the Revolutionaries in Western Europe”.
Jan 20 – At an attempted bomb attack on the German Air and Space Research Institute in Stuttgart, a bomb explodes prematurely and kills militant Johannes Thimme. Claudia Wannersdorfer is injured and arrested.
Jan 25 – Action Directe’s Elisabeth von Dyck Commando kills the Chief of Arms Trade in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, General René Audran, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Paris.
Feb 1 – The RAF’s Patsy O’Hara Commando kills MTU’s Chairman of the Board Ernst Zimmermann in Gauting near Munich.
Mar 13 – In Dusseldorf, Heidi Schulz and Rolf Clemens Wagner are sentenced to two life sentences each.
Apr 2 – In Stuttgart-Stammheim, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar are sentenced to five life sentences each.
Jun 2 – At an attempted bomb attack on the Hannover Messe, a bomb explodes prematurely and kills Jürgen Pemöller.
Jul 3 – In Offenbach, Ingrid Barabass and Mareille Schmegner are arrested.
Aug 8 – Bomb attack at the Rhein-Main Airbase near Frankfurt by the joint RAF and AD’s George Jackson Commando. One soldier and one employee are killed and 11 persons are injured. In order to obtain access to the Airbase, Soldier Edward Pimental is killed for his ID card.
Dec 6 – In Stuttgart, Claudia Wannersdorfer is sentenced to 8 years in prison.
1986
Jan 31-Feb 3 – The Congress “Antiimperialist and Anticapitalist Resistance in Western Europe” takes place in Frankfurt with about 1,000 participants.
Feb 5 – In Munich, Ernst Volker Staub is sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Mar 20 – In Stuttgart, Christa Eckes and Manuela Happe are sentenced to 8 and 15 years in prison .
Apr 15 – The US Airforce and the US Navy carry out airstrikes against Libya. The operation is presented as retaliation for Libya’s support to certain Palestinian groups.
Jul 9 – The RAF’s Mara Cagol Commando kills Siemens President Karl-Heinz Beckurts and his driver with a remotely controlled bomb on a road near Munich.
Aug 2 – Eva Haule and her counterparts from antiimperialist resistance groups, Luitgard Hornstein and Christian Kluth, are arrested in Russelsheim.
Oct 10 – The RAF’s Ingrid Schubert Commando kills Foreign Department Director Gerold von Braunmühl in Bonn.
Nov 17 – Action Directe kills Renault Chairman of the Board Georges Besse in Paris.
Dec 23 – In Dusseldorf, Helmut Pohl is sentenced to life and Stefan Frey to 4 1/2 years in prison.
1987
Feb 21 – Near Orleans, South of Paris, AD members Jann-Marc Rouillan, Nathalie Ménigon, Joëlle Aubron and Georges Cipriani are arrested.
Mar 16 – In Dusseldorf, Rolf Clemens Wagner is sentenced to life in prison.
Dec 10 – Start of the Intifada, a mass revolt of Palestinians against the Israeli occupation, triggering international boycott campaigns and solidarity actions. Officially stopped in September 1993, the Intifada gained intensity from the year 2000.
Dec 18 – Andrea Sievering and Rico Prauss, members of antiimperialist resistance groups, are arrested in Dusseldorf.
1988
Jun 28 – In Stuttgart, Luitgart Hornstein, Christian Kluth and Eva Haule are sentenced to 4 to 15 years in prison.
Sep 20 – Attempted attack on Federal Finance Secretary Hans Tietmeyer in Bonn by the RAF’s Khaled Aker Commando.
September – Joint statement of the RAF and the Red Brigade’s BR-PCC on their “front” policy.
Nov 30 – Manfred Grashof and Klaus Jünschke are released from prison.
1989
Jan 18 – In Stuttgart, Andrea Sievering and Rico Prauss are sentenced to 9 years in prison each.
Jan 20 – In Dusseldorf, Thomas Richter, Thomas Thoene, Barbara Perau and Norbert Hofmeier, members of antiimperialist resistance groups, are sentenced to 4 to years in prison.
Feb 1-May 14 – Tenth collective hungerstrike of political prisoners in Germany.
Nov 9 – Fall of the Berlin wall.
Nov 30 – The RAF’s Wolfgang Beer Commando kills Deutsche Bank Chairman of the Board Alfred Herrhausen with a bomb attack in Bad Homburg.
Nov 30 – Verena Becker is released from prison.
Dec 7 – Ute Hladki und Holger Deilke, supposedly members of an antiimperialist resistance group, are arrested near Sudermarsch in Northern Germany.
1990
Feb 11 – In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is released from prison.
Mar 2 – Attempted attack on the Minister of Agriculture, Ignaz Kiechle, in Bonn. The RAF is made responsible but denies.
Jun 6-18 – Susanne Albrecht, Inge Viett, Werner Lotze, Christine Dümlein, Ekkehard von Seckendorff, Monika Helbing, Sigrid Sternebeck, Ralf Friedrich, Silke Maier-Witt and Henning Beer are arrested in Eastern Germany. Between June 3, 1991 and August 26, 1992, they are sentenced to 6 to 13 years in prison. In 1994 and 1995, Christian Klar, Heidi Schulz, Sieglinde Hofmann, Rolf Clemens Wagner and Ingrid Jakobsmeier are again convicted because of their testimonies.
Jun 30 – Angelika Speitel is released from prison.
Jul 27 – Attempted attack in Bonn on the Secretary of Interior Affairs Hans Neusel by the RAF’s José Manuel Sévillano Commando.
1991
Jan 15 – In Stuttgart, Luitgart Hornstein is sentenced to 9 years in prison.
Jan 16 – Following the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990 and the massing of 500,000 US troops in the Middle East, the US Airforce attacks Iraq for two weeks with heavy air strikes, before an invasion with US troops is started that will last until April 12.
Feb 13 – The RAF fires 250 rounds at the US Embassy in Bonn with a Commando which it first calls after Vincenzo Spano and subsequently after Ciro Rizatto.
Apr 1 – The RAF’s Ulrich Wessel Commando kills the Chairman of the Privatisation Office for Eastern Germany (Treuhandanstalt) Detlev Karsten Rohwedder in Dusseldorf.
Dec 26 – Official dissolution of the Soviet Union.
1992
January – The RZ declare the end of their struggle.
Apr 10 – The RAF makes a statement of “incision”, in which it declares to stop its escalation of attacks “on leading figures from state and industry”.
May 15 – Günter Sonnenberg is released from prison.
Jun 20 – Following a demonstration in May at the Dusseldorf Justice Department, in Bonn some 2,000 people demonstrate for the immediate release of the political prisoners.
Nov 17 – Bernd Rössner is released from prison.
1993
Mar 27 – Prior to the opening of a new high security prison in Weiterstadt near Darmstadt, it is blown up by the RAF’s Katharina Hammerschmidt Commando.
Jun 27 – In a shootout following an arrest operation in Bad Kleinen, Wolfgang Grams and GSG-9 officer Michael Newrzella are killed. Birgit Hogefeld is arrested. Because of a series of contradictions during the operation, Minister for Interior Affairs Rudolf Seiters steps down and Chief Federal Prosecutor Alexander von Stahl is fired. The operation was possible because secret agent Klaus Steinmetz had managed to get a contact with the RAF. At the same time, attempts were made to initiate negociations with the government to come to a deal for the prisoners.
Oct 18 – In Stuttgart, Ingrid Jakobsmeier is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Oct 28 – In a statement for the prisoners from the RAF, Brigitte Mohnhaupt declares their split with the remaining group outside and some of the prisoners, because of the attempted deal with the government.
Nov 24 – In Dusseldorf, Rolf Clemens Wagner is sentenced to 12 additional years in prison.
1994
Apr 28 – Eva Haule is once more sentenced to life in prison.
Jul 27-Aug 3 – Hungerstrike by prisoners from the RAF for the liberation of Irmgard Möller.
Sep 5 – Heidi Schulz is once more sentenced to life in prison.
Dec 1 – Irmgard Möller is released from prison.
1995
Feb 21 – Christine Kuby is released from prison.
Apr 25-26 – Manuela Happe and Lutz Taufer are released from prison.
May 10 – Karl-Heinz Dellwo is released from prison.
Aug 6-8 – Hungerstrike by prisoners from the RAF to support the international campaign for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Sep 26 – Sieglinde Hoffman is once more sentenced to life in prison.
Oct 16 – Knut Folkerts is released from prison.
1996
May 10 – Hanna Krabbe is released from prison.
Nov 5 – In Frankfurt, Birgit Hogefeld is sentenced to three times life. Her release is fixed for not earlier than 2011.
Nov 19 – In Frankfurt, Souhaila Andrawes is sentenced to 12 years in prison for the hijack of the Lufthansa plane in October 1977.
1997
Jan 24 – Inge Viett is released from prison.
1998
Mar 13 – Peter Jürgen Boock is released from prison.
Apr 20 – RAF statement in which the organisation declares it dissolution.
May 19 – Helmut Pohl is released from prison.
Oct 19 – Heidi Schulz is released from prison. Her official pardon is granted on February 26, 2002.
1999
Mar 1 – Stefan Wisniewski is released from prison.
May 5 – Sieglinde Hofmann is released from prison.
Jul 20 – For the attack on an armored security car in Duisburg and the escape with half a million Euros, fugitives from the RAF are held responsible.
Sep 15 – Police kill Horst Meyer in Vienna and arrest Andrea Klump. Both were wanted for presumed membership in the RAF. Andrea Klump will be sentenced to 12 years on Sep 28, 2004. Between 1996 and 2003 four more people who were wanted by the police turn themselves in. The charges against them have been dropped. Another three persons are still on the wanted list.
2001
Oct 26 – Rolf Heissler is released from prison.
2003
Dec 10 – Rolf Clemens Wagner is released from prison.
2007
Mar 25 – Brigitte Mohnhaupt is released from prison.
May 7 – German President Horst Köhler refuses to grant pardon to Christian Klar. Over the entire year, an unprecedented smear campaign takes place in the German media with regard to the 30th anniversary of the “German Automn”, which leads to new accusations and legal procedures against former prisoners from the RAF.
Aug 17 – Eva Haule is released from prison.
2008
Dec 19 – Christian Klar is released from prison.
2010
May – Statement by “some who at different moments were in the RAF” on the on-going mediacampaign started in 2007 and the charges with which they are to be coerced into testifying.
Sep 30 – Start of the trial against Verena Becker for involvement in the Buback killing.
2011
June 20 – Birgit Hogefeld is released from prison.
2012
July 6 – Verena Becker is sentenced to four years in prison, the remainder of which is suspended. Over the next three months, several media are trying to initiate a new smear campaign regarding the RAF’s history, without much avail.