by J. Smith
Schiller, Karl: 1911-1994; 1933, member of the paramilitary Stormtroopers; 1937, joined the Nazi Party; 1946, joined the SPD; 1966-1972, minister of the economy; 1971-1972, minister of finance.
Schiller, Margrit: b. 1948; SPK member; 1971, joined the RAF, arrested a few months later, sentenced to two years and three months; 1973, released from prison and returned underground; 1974, arrested; 1979, released from prison; 1985-1993, lived in exile in Cuba; 1993-2003, lived in exile in Uruguay; 2003, returned to Germany.
Schily, Otto: b. 1932; lawyer for prisoners from the RAF; 1979, founding member of the Green Party; 1989, left the Green Party to join the SPD; 1994-1998, chairman of the SPD parliamentary faction; 1998-2005, federal minister of the interior; 2005, joined the boards of two biometric security firms.
Schleyer, Hanns Martin: 1915-1977; former SS member and leading West German industrialist; 1977, kidnapped and executed by the RAF during the German Autumn.
Schmidt, Helmut: b. 1918; SPD politician; 1967-1969, chairman of the SPD parliamentary faction; 1969-1972, federal minister of defense; 1972-1974, federal minister of finance; 1974-1982, chancellor.
Schmitz, Sabine: b. 1955; alleged RAF supporter; 1976, arrested and charged under §129.
Schneider, Gert: RAF member; 1977, arrested in Amsterdam; 1978, extradited to the FRG; 1980, sentenced to fifteen years in prison; 1983, broke with the RAF; 1987, released from prison.
Schneider, Jürgen: alleged RAF supporter, 1981, arrested and charged with supporting a terrorist organization; 1982, sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Schröder, Gerhard: b. 1944; lawyer and SPD member; 1978-1980, represented former RAF member Horst Mahler, winning his freedom from prison; 1988, successfully represented Mahler in his effort to regain the right to practice law in the FRG; 1990-1998, president of Lower Saxony; 1998-2005, chancellor of the FRG.
Schubert, Ingrid: 1944-1977; 1970, founding member of the RAF, arrested the same year, sentenced to thirteen years in prison; 1977, killed in prison.
Schulz, Adelheid: b. 1955; 1976, joined the RAF; 1982, arrested; 1985, received three life sentences; 1994, charged with the 1978 shooting death of a Dutch border guard on the basis of information provided by the defectors to the GDR; 1998, released from prison on grounds of ill health; 2002, pardoned.
Seckendorff-Gudent, Ekkehard von: b. 1940; physician, RAF supporter; 1980, received asylum in the GDR; 1990, arrested and cooperated with police and prosecutors, released after one day as the only crime he was charged with was support for a terrorist organization, and the statute of limitations had expired.
Shultz, George: b. 1920; 1969-1970, U.S. secretary of labor; 1972-1974, U.S. secretary of the Treasury; 1982-1989, U.S. secretary of state.
Siepmann, Ina: b. 1944; nurse, alleged 2JM supporter; 1974, arrested; 1975, released from prison as part of a prisoner exchange for CDU politician Peter Lorenz, who had been kidnapped by the 2JM; 1978, following the Till Meyer breakout, she relocated permanently to the Middle East; 1982, killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike during the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.
Söhnlein, Horst: b. 1943; 1968, participated in the Frankfurt department store arsons, released while awaiting an appeal; 1969, turned himself in and served his sentence when the appeal was denied.
Sonnenberg, Günter: b. 1954; 1976, joined the RAF; 1977, shot in the head and arrested; 1978, received two life sentences; 1992, released from prison.
Speitel, Angelika: b. 1952; ex-wife of Volker Speitel; 1977, joined the RAF; 1978, shot and arrested; 1979, sentenced to life in prison; 1990, pardoned.
Speitel, Volker: b. 1950; ex-husband of Angelika Speitel; assistant to lawyers representing prisoners from the RAF; 1977, arrested, cooperated with police and prosecutors; 1979, released from prison and relocated to Brazil.
Stachowiak, Ilse: b. 1954; 1970, joined the RAF; 1971, arrested, released the same year and returned underground; 1974, arrested; 1978, released, the last four months of her sentence being converted into three years of probation.
Stahl, Wolfgang: b. 1952; participated in underground group with Sigurd Debus.
Staub, Ernst-Volker: b. 1954; 1984, arrested in the company of RAF members; 1990, released from prison and went underground; 1999, allegedly involved in the robbery of an armored car in Duisburg; one of three alleged former RAF members still being sought.
Sternebeck, Sigrid: b. 1949; 1977, joined the RAF; 1980, left the RAF and received asylum in the GDR, where she married fellow RAF defector Ralf Baptist Friedrich; 1990, arrested and cooperated with police and prosecutors; 1992, sentenced to eight and a half years; released and living under a new name.
Stoll, Willy Peter: 1950-1978; 1976, joined the RAF; 1978, shot dead by police.
Strauß, Franz Josef: 1915-1988; CSU politician; 1953-1955, federal minister for special affairs; 1955-1956, federal minister for atomic issues; 1956-1962, federal minister of defense; 1966-1969, federal minister of finance; 1978-1988, president of Bavaria.
Ströbele, Hans-Christian: b. 1939; lawyer for prisoners from the RAF; 1969, cofounder of the Socialist Lawyers Collective; 1978, founding member of the Alternative Liste; 1978, cofounder of taz; 1985, joined the Green Party.
Stürmer, Gudrun: b. 1950; 2JM member; 1978, participated in Till Meyer liberation, arrested shortly thereafter in Bulgaria and extradited to the FRG.
Taufer, Lutz: b. 1944; SPK member; 1975, joined the RAF and participated in the Holger Meins Commando’s hostage taking at the West German embassy in Stockholm, where he was captured; 1977, received two life sentences; 1995, released from prison.
Tauras, Jürgen: b. 1951; sometime between 1974 and 1976, joined with the underground group that had been established by Klaus Dorff, Waltraud Liewald, and Peter-Jürgen Boock; 1976, arrested; 1978, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for illegal activities.
Teufel, Fritz: 1943-2010; 1967, founding member of Kommune 1; 1972, founding member of the 2JM; 1975, arrested in connection with the 2JM’s Lorenz kidnapping, he was held for five years before presenting an alibi (he had been working under a false name in an Essen factory at the time); 2010, died of Parkinson’s disease, shortly after his interment the urn containing his ashes was stolen only to turn up a week later near Rudi Dutschke’s grave.
Thatcher, Margaret: b. 1925-2013; 1959-1970, British Conservative Party member of parliament; 1961, parliamentary under secretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance; 1967, selected for the U.S. Foreign Leader Program, joined the Shadow Cabinet as fuel spokesperson; 1970, secretary of state for education and science; 1975-1979, leader of the opposition; 1979-1990, prime minister; 1982, launched Malvinas War in response to the Argentine invasion of the British-controlled South Georgia and Falkland Islands; 1984, survived IRA assassination attempt; 1990, forced to resign over her opposition to joining a single-currency European Community; 2013, died of a stroke, occasioning spontaneous street parties and celebrations across the UK.
Thimme, Johannes: 1956-1985; 1976, affiliated himself with the RAF support scene; 1977, arrested in connection with the Buback assassination; 1978, sentenced to one year and ten months for membership in a terrorist organization; 1979, released from prison; 1981, arrested and charged with supporting a terrorist organization, sentenced to one and a half years; 1982, released from prison; 1985, killed when a bomb he was helping to plant exploded prematurely.
Viehmann, Klaus: 2JM member; 1978, arrested, sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Viett, Inge: b. 1944; 1972, founding member of the 2JM, arrested the same year; 1973, broke out of prison; 1975, arrested; 1976, broke out of prison; 1980, joined the RAF; 1982, left the RAF and received asylum in the GDR; 1990, arrested, the only RAF defector to the GDR who did not provide evidence against other guerillas, although she did provide information about her contacts in the MfS; 1997, released from prison.
Vogel, Andreas: b. 1950; 2JM member; 1976, arrested, sentenced to ten years in prison; 1980, affiliated himself with the RAF’s positions while in pr
ison.
Vogel, Hans-Jochen: b. 1926; Hitler Youth squad leader prior to being conscripted in 1943; 1950 joined SPD; 1976-1983 minister of justice; 1987-1991, leader of SPD.
Voigt, Helmut: b. 1943; head of the MfS’s international terrorism section, contact for West German guerilla groups, involved in relocating RAF defectors to the GDR; 1994, sentenced to four years in prison for supplying the explosives used in the Carlos group’s 1983 bombing of the French cultural center in West Berlin.
Vollmer, Antje: b. 1943; Green Party member elected to parliament in 1983, 1987, and 1994; 1988, with left-wing novelist Martin Walser launched an initiative for dialogue with prisoners from the RAF; consistent supporter of amnesty for prisoners from the RAF.
Wackernagel, Christof: b. 1951; 1977, joined the RAF, arrested in Holland; 1978, extradited to the FRG; 1980, sentenced to fifteen years in prison; 1983, broke with the RAF; 1987, released from prison; relocated to Mali.
Wagner, Rolf Clemens: b. 1944; 1975, joined with the underground group that had been established by Klaus Dorff, Waltraud Liewald, and Peter-Jürgen Boock; 1976, joined the RAF; 1979, arrested in the aftermath of a bank robbery in Zurich, Switzerland, and extradited to the FRG; 1985, received two life sentences; 1993, sentenced to twelve additional years in prison on the basis of testimony provided by former defector to the GDR Werner Lotze; 2003, pardoned on grounds of ill health; 2007, briefly threatened with reimprisonment after stating in an interview that the Schleyer kidnapping was a legitimate action.
Walser, Martin: b. 1927; Gruppe 47 novelist; 1988, with Green Party member Antje Vollmer launched an initiative for a dialogue with prisoners from the RAF.
Wessel, Ulrich: 1946-1975; SPK member; 1975, joined the RAF, killed during the Holger Meins Commando’s hostage taking at the West German embassy in Stockholm.
Wieland, Gert Jürgen: b. 1943; participated in underground group with Sigurd Debus.
Wischnewski, Hans-Jürgen: 1922-2005; SPD member; 1959-1961, chairman of the Jusos; 1966, federal minister for economic cooperation; 1970, member of the SPD’s executive committee; 1974, secretary of state; 1974-1976; minister of state at the Department of Foreign Affairs; 1976-1979, minister of state at the federal Chancellery; 1977, government envoy to Third World countries during the German Autumn; 1979-1982, deputy chairman of the SPD; 1982, minister of state at the federal Chancellery.
Wisniewski, Stefan: b. 1953; 1975 or 1976, joined the RAF; 1978, arrested at Orly Airport in Paris; 1981, sentenced to life in prison; 1999, released from prison; 2007, Peter-Jürgen Boock claimed that Wisniewski was the shooter in the 1977 assassination of Attorney General Siegfried Buback, Verena Becker is alleged to have made similar claims, no charges were ever laid as these claims were not considered credible.
Zeis, Peter: BAW prosecutor involved in numerous RAF-related trials, including the Stammheim trial of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe.
Zimmermann, Friedrich: 1925-2012; 1943, joined the Nazi Party; 1948, joined the CSU; 1982-1989 minister of the interior.
Zitzlaff, Wienke: b. 1931; RAF member Ulrike Meinhof’s sister; active in prisoner support work.
Armed Struggle in West Germany: A Chronology
1967
June 2, 1967
Student Benno Ohnesorg is shot and killed by undercover police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras during a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran to West Berlin. Initially acquitted, Kurras is retried, convicted and spends four months in jail. He is allowed to retain his job.
1968
April 3, 1968
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein firebomb two Frankfurt department stores to protest the escalation of the Vietnam War. They are arrested the next day.
April 11, 1968
Student leader Rudi Dutschke is shot three times, including once in the head, and seriously injured, in West Berlin. The shooter, Josef Bachmann, is a young right-wing worker from Munich, who claims to have been inspired by the Bild Zeitung. The shooting sparked weeks of violent unrest, primarily directed against the Springer Press, the publisher of Bild Zeitung. The Springer Press in blockaded in West Berlin. Attacks against Springer Press facilities occur all over Europe. In Munich, two demonstrators are killed in clashes with the police. Demonstrations and clashes occur for the rest of the month in cities throughout West Germany.
October 31, 1968
The Frankfurt Landgericht (Regional Court—LG) sentences Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein to three years in prison for the April department store arsons in Frankfurt.
1969
June 13, 1969
Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein are released while their case is appealed. All except Söhnlein immediately go underground. Proll will part ways with Baader and Ensslin in December 1969. On November 21, 1970, he will turn himself in to the authorities, serving less than a year and being released in October 1971.
1970
February 12, 1970
Fifty-two psychiatric patients form the Sozialistischer Patientenkollektiv (SPK—Socialist Patients Collective) in Heidelberg. The group’s motto is “Turn Illness Into a Weapon.”
April 4, 1970
Andreas Baader is arrested in West Berlin.
May 14, 1970
An armed group breaks Andreas Baader out of the library of the Institute for Social Research, where he has obtained permission to work with Ulrike Meinhof on a book about juvenile detention centers while serving his sentence. An Institute employee, Georg Linke, is shot and injured.
May 22, 1970
The West Berlin radical left-wing magazine 883 publishes Die Rote Armee aufbauen (Build the Red Army), an initial text from the group that would go on to found the RAF. A second text is published in 883’s June 5 edition.
June-August 1970
Twenty West Germans, most of whom will later found the Red Army Faction (RAF), receive training in an Al Fatah training camp in Jordan.
September 29, 1970
In West Berlin, three simultaneous bank robberies are carried out by people who will go on to found the RAF and the 2JM. The robberies net 220,000 DM.
1971
May 1, 1971
Das Konzept Stadtguerilla (The Urban Guerilla Concept) is released. The name Red Army Faction (RAF) is used for the first time.
June 1971
Über den bewaffneten Kampf in Westeuropa (Regarding the Armed Struggle in West Europe), a document signed The RAF Collective, but entirely the work of Horst Mahler, is released. The rest of the RAF reject the document, and the pursuant tension will eventually lead to Horst Mahler being expelled from the group.
June 24, 1971
SPK members exchange fire with the police at a traffic checkpoint, injuring one police officer. The SPK’s office is raided that evening. The SPK dissolves itself, a number of its members going underground and joining the RAF.
July 8, 1971
Thomas Weissbecker, Michael “Bommi” Baumann, and Georg von Rauch go to trial for beating Quick journalist Horst Rieck. Baumann and Weissbecker are released on bail. Von Rauch, facing other charges, with a possible ten-year sentence, pretends to be Weissbecker (the two men resembled each other) and leaves with Baumann. Weissbecker is later released by the embarrassed authorities. All three go underground. This marks the beginning of the process leading to the 2nd of June Movement (2JM), a West Berlin-based guerilla group. Weissbecker joins the RAF and will be shot by police in March 1972.
July 15, 1971
During the first large-scale manhunt for members of the RAF, Petra Schelm becomes the first member of the RAF to be shot dead by police. Werner Hoppe is arrested.
September 1, 1971
Horst Herold is named head of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA). He immediately begins centralizing the manhunt for RAF members and constructing what will become the most extensive police computer database in the world.
1972
May 197
2
A major RAF document entitled Stadtguerilla und Klassenkampf (The Urban Guerilla and Class Struggle) is released. The document is sometimes referred to as Dem Volk dienen (Serve the People).
May 11, 1972
Responding to the mining of Haiphong harbor and the intensified carpet-bombing of Vietnam, the RAF’s Petra Schelm Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Army V Corps in Frankfurt. One lieutenant colonel is killed and thirteen soldiers are injured.
May 13, 1972
The RAF’s Thomas Weissbecker Commando bombs the police headquarters in both Augsburg and Munich.
May 15, 1972
The RAF plants a bomb in the car of Judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, head judge for the trial of RAF member Manfred Grashof. (The judge had ordered Grashof held in strict isolation despite the serious injuries he sustained during a shootout at the time of his arrest.) Buddenberg’s wife is seriously injured, when she, instead of him, uses the car.
May 19, 1972
The RAF’s 2nd of June Commando bombs the Springer Building in Hamburg. Despite three warnings, the building is not cleared and seventeen workers are injured.
May 24, 1972
The RAF’s July 15th Commando bombs the Headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe in Heidelberg. Three soldiers are killed.
May 28, 1972
A false communiqué is issued claiming that the RAF will place three random car bombs in Stuttgart on June 2, the anniversary of the killing of Benno Ohnesorg.
May 29, 1972
The RAF issues a communiqué addressing the false communiqué regarding the attacks threatened against Stuttgart.
May 31, 1972
A recorded message from Ulrike Meinhof is played at a teach-in in Frankfurt organized by the prisoner support group Red Aid. The BKA initiates a massive manhunt for RAF members, known as Operation Washout.
June 1–July 7, 1972