Members of the Red Army Faction

Red Army Faction insignia

Members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) can be split up into three generations. The first (founding) generation existed from 1970 onwards. The second generation emerged from 1975 and included people from other groups such as the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK) and the 2 June Movement. The third generation began in 1982. The group announced its dissolution in 1998.

Overview

The Red Army Faction (RAF) existed in West Germany from 1970 to 1998, committing numerous crimes, especially in the autumn of 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn". The RAF was founded in 1970 by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Horst Mahler, and others. The first generation of the organization was commonly referred to by the press and the government as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang", a name the group did not use to refer to itself.

The RAF was responsible for 34 deaths, including many secondary targets such as chauffeurs and bodyguards, and many injuries in its almost 30 years of activity.

Eileen MacDonald stated in Shoot the Women First (1991) that women made up about fifty percent of the membership of the Red Army Faction and about eighty percent of the RAF's supporters. This was higher than other similar groups in West Germany, in which women made up about thirty percent of the membership.

The RAF announced its dissolution in 1998 with the paper Die Stadtguerilla in Form der RAF ist nun Geschichte (The Urban Guerilla in the form of the RAF is now history).

First generation Red Army Faction (1970–75)

Founding first generation members

Founding first generation members of RAF

Name	Dates	Notes
Brigitte Asdonk	1947-	Arrested in 1970, released from prison 1982.
Andreas Baader	1943–1977	Involved in the 1968 Frankfurt department store firebombings, founded the RAF, and was arrested during the 1972 May Offensive. Seen by the German state as a leader of the first generation alongside Ensslin, Meinhof, Meins and Raspe. Visited in jail by Jean Paul Sartre. Allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head in Stammheim prison on 18 October 1977.
Ingeborg Barz	1948-?	Early member, quit the RAF in 1972, thought to be dead.
Monika Berberich	1947-	Arrested in 1970, escaped and was recaptured in 1976, then was released 1988.
Gudrun Ensslin	1940–1977	Involved in the 1968 Frankfurt department store firebombings, founded the RAF, and was arrested during the 1972 May Offensive. Seen by the German state as a leader of the first generation alongside Baader, Meinhof, Meins and Raspe. Allegedly committed suicide in Stammheim prison on 18 October 1977.
Irene Goergens	1951-	Met Ulrike Meinhof as a teenager and was arrested in 1970. She was released in 1977.
Manfred Grashof	1946-	Arrested in 1977 and released in 1988.
Peter Homann	1936-	Founding member of the RAF, broke with the RAF after participating in the training camp in Jordan. Went with Stefan Aust to Sicily and took Ulrike Meinhof's children to their father, whereas Meinhof wanted them to go to her sister.
Horst Mahler	1936-	Lawyer who joined the RAF and was arrested in 1970. By 1974 he had been expelled from the RAF. After his release from prison in 1980, he went on to join the neo-Nazi Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands and to found a holocaust denial group.
Ulrike Meinhof	1934–1976	A well-known radical journalist who was editor of konkret. She was married to Klaus Rainer Röhl then divorced him. She became friends with Baader and Ensslin, then helped free Andreas Baader from imprisonment on 30 April 1970. Arrested with Gerhard Müller in 1972 and seen by the German state as a leader of the first generation alongside Baader, Ensslin, Meins and Raspe. She was found hanged in her prison cell on 9 May 1976. The International Investigatory Commission into the Death of Ulrike Meinhof announced in 1978 that she had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
Astrid Proll	1947-	Arrested in 1971 and released to hospital in 1973 due to health conditions caused by solitary confinement. She escaped and went to England, where she was re-arrested in 1978.
Petra Schelm	1950–1971	Early member, shot dead by Hamburg police in 1971 at the age of 20.
Ingrid Schubert	1944–1977	Founding member and amongst the first gorup of RAF members to be arrested alongside Asdonk, Berberich, Goergens and Mahler. Allegedly committed suicide in a Munich prison on 13 November 1977, two weeks after the deaths of Baader, Ensslin and Raspe.

Other first generation members

Other first generation members of RAF

Name	Dates	Notes
Christa Eckes	1950-	Arrested on 4 February 1974 when the police raided RAF safehouses simultaneously in Hamburg and Frankfurt together with Kay-Werner Allnach, Wolfgang Beer, Eberhard Becker, Helmut Pohl, Margrit Schiller and Ilse Stachowiak. On 28 September 1977, she was sentenced to seven years in prison. After her release she was arrested again on 2 July 1984 in Frankfurt, when a gun was accidentally discharged into the apartment below a safe house. The others arrested were Helmut Pohl, Stefan Frey, Ingrid Jakobsmeier, Barbara Ernst and Ernst-Volker Staub.
Angela Luther	1940-	First involved with the Blues-Scene and West Berlin Tupamaros, but in July 1971, she met with some RAF members, and together with Thomas Weissbecker she expressed interest and started working with the RAF. On 12 May 1972 she participated in the bombing of a police station in Augsburg together with Irmgard Möller, and on 24 May 1972 she was involved in the bombing of the officers club and the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg
Holger Meins	1941 – 1974	A leftist cinematography student in West Germany, he joined the Baader-Meinhof gang quite early on along with Beate Sturm and was seen as a leading member. In 1971 he was arrested alongside Raspe and Baader during a shoot-out with the police in Frankfurt. In prison the Baader-Meinhof gang called for a hunger strike, as they felt they were being treated unfairly by the government. Meins died on 11 November 1974 as a result of the hunger strike. He weighed less than 100 pounds at the time of his death; he was over six feet (1.8 m) tall. His death sparked rage amongst RAF members everywhere. Seen by the German state as a leader of the first generation alongside Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and Raspe.
Irmgard Möller	1947-	Bombed the Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg on 24 May 1972. She claimed responsibility in the name of the Commando 15 July (the date of Petra Schelm's death) in honour of Schelm.
Jan-Carl Raspe	1944-1977	An early member of the RAF, captured a short while before both Holger Meins and Andreas Baader were arrested in Frankfurt in 1972 (he had been the driver of their Porsche Targa). Alongside Baader, Ensslin and Meinhof he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Stammheim. Raspe supposedly committed suicide in his cell using a 9 mm Heckler & Koch handgun on 18 October 1977, however, it is also claimed that he was murdered in an extrajudicial killing. Seen by the German state as a leader of the first generation alongside Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and Meins.
Beate Sturm	1950-	Joined the RAF in 1970 with Holger Meins when she was a 19 year old student. She experienced difficulties imagining that innocent people could be affected by RAF actions and left the group in 1971. She later gave some newspaper interviews.
Tommy Weissbecker	1944-1972	An associate of Horst Mahler and a minor member of the EAF. He was first involved with the Blues-Scene and West Berlin Tupamaros but in July 1971 he met with some RAF members and together with Angela Luther he expressed interest and started working with the RAF. In 1971 he was charged and acquitted with assaulting a Springer journalist. Later, on 2 March 1972, Weissbecker, along with Carmen Roll, was stopped by police outside a hotel in Augsburg. Weissbecker was shot dead by the police when he reached into his pocket, supposedly to grab his gun. However Stefan Aust claims that he was simply reaching into his pocket to produce ID. On 12 May 1972, over two months after Weissbecker's death, RAF members bombed a police station in Augsburg and a Criminal Investigations Agency in Munich. They claimed responsibility for the bombings in the name of the 'Tommy Weissbecker Kommando'.

Second generation Red Army Faction (1975–1982)

By 1972 a large number of the core members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang had been captured and imprisoned. However, new members swelled the dwindling ranks of the Gang. These revolutionaries mostly had similar backgrounds to the first generation, e.g. they were middle class and frequently students. Most of them joined the Gang after their own groups dissolved e.g. the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK) and Movement 2 June (J2M).

Former SPK members

The SPK, the leftist 'therapy-through-violence' group, dissolved in 1971, and those members who had turned militant forged links and joined with the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Klaus Jünschke Carmen Roll, and Gerhard Müller had already joined as part of the first generation of the RAF but originally started in SPK.

Former SPK members

Name	Dates	Notes
Elisabeth von Dyck	1951–1979	Member of the SPK and then RAF. She was born in Nuremberg. She was the girlfriend of Klaus Jünschke and later of lawyer Klaus Croissant. She was involved with the 'committees against torture' in 1974. In 1975 von Dyck, along with Siegfried Haag, was arrested on suspicion of smuggling weapons out of Switzerland and served six months in a detention centre in Cologne before being released. However, a warrant went out for her arrest in 1977. von Dyck went underground, and Monika Helbing stated that around this time she fled to Baghdad for a while with Friederike Krabbe. von Dyck returned to West Germany sometime between 1977 and 1979, and on 4 May 1979, von Dyck entered a Nuremberg house, thought to have been an RAF hideout, which was under police surveillance. The police shot von Dyck through the back, killing her. A gun was found on her body. von Dyck was shot even though she was only suspected of being involved with the RAF, and was not a high-priority on the wanted list. However, it was alleged that the police shot her after she first drew a pistol and aimed it at them.
Bernhard Braun	1946-	Involved with SPH, RAF and Movement 2 June. On 9 June 1972, Braun and Brigitte Mohnhaupt were arrested in West Berlin. He broke away from the RAF whilst imprisoned.
Siegfried Hausner	1952–1975	He took part in a bombing of the Axel Springer Verlag in 1971 and was the leader of the West German embassy siege in Stockholm in 1975, when he was fatally injured after TNT was accidentally detonated
Sieglinde Hofmann	1944-	An important figure of the second generation RAF and was personally involved in the kidnap and murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, his driver and three accompanying policemen.
Hanna-Elise Krabbe	1945-	Member of the IZRU (the group which succeeded the SPK) and was the elder sister of Friederike Krabbe, another member. Hanna-Elise Krabbe took part in the West German embassy siege in Stockholm. She was the only female member involved in the siege. Her role during the siege was to guard the hostages. She was arrested when the siege failed and was sentenced on 20 July 1977, to twice life imprisonment. She was released from prison in 1996, after serving 21 years.
Friederike Krabbe	1950-	Younger sister of Hanna-Elise Krabbe. She is believed to have been one of the RAF members who kidnapped Hanns Martin Schleyer. Afterwards she fled to Iraq, living in Baghdad with Elisabeth von Dyck and Monika Helbing. She left the RAF and is thought to still live in the Middle East.
Brigitte Mohnhaupt	1949-	A leader amongst the second generation RAF and was involved in some of their most serious crimes (such as the murder of Jürgen Ponto) and was a key perpetrator during the German Autumn.
Klaus Jünschke	1947-	Student member of the SPK, who managed to escape arrest when police came after certain members of the SPK in 1971. He joined the RAF with his militant girlfriend Elisabeth von Dyck and was involved in at least one bank robbery (in December 1971 in Kaiserslautern – alongside Ingeborg Barz and Wolfgang Grundmann).
Carmen Roll		Involved in 'working circle explosives' in which she achieved limited success with Siegfried Hausner when they managed to manufacture a small amount of TNT in December 1970 in the University Institute of Physiology. In February 1971 Roll, along with Hausner, planned to bomb the President of the Federal Republic's special train in Heidelberg station, but she arrived too late with the explosives, and the plot failed. On 2 March 1972, Roll was confronted by police outside a hotel in Augsburg. Tommy Weissbecker was shot dead and Roll was arrested. Two weeks later to sedate her when she resisted fingerprinting she was given a near-fatal dose of ether by prison doctors. In 1976 Roll was freed from prison. She moved to Italy and became a nurse.
Lutz Taufer	1944-	Protested against the supposed torture of political prisoners in West Germany in 1974. In 1975, he joined the RAF and took part in the West German embassy siege in Stockholm. He was arrested and sentenced to two life terms, before being released in 1995.
Ulrich Wessel	1946–1975	Son of a rich Hamburg businessman. Wessel was described as a dandy, and he was a millionaire by inheritance. He was involved with the SPK and took part in the West German embassy siege in Stockholm. He died during the siege when the TNT was accidentally exploded; the force of the explosion startled him so much that he dropped a grenade he was holding and it exploded on him. He died soon afterwards.

Former M2J members

The Movement 2 June was founded in 1972 and was allied with the RAF but was ideologically anarchist as opposed to the Marxist RAF. In the early 1980s, the movement disbanded and many members then joined the RAF.

Former M2J members

Name	Dates	Notes
Ingrid Barabass (or Barabaß)	1952-	In 1979, she decided to renounce violence together with fellow RAF members Karin Kamp-Münichow, Karola Magg and Regina Nicolai.
Rolf Heißler	1948-	Became acquainted with Brigitte Mohnhaupt in the late 1960s and first became a member of the Munich Tupamaros and later joined the RAF together with his ex-wife Mohnhaupt, but he was also closely acquainted with the Movement 2 June. On 13 April 1971 he was involved in a bank robbery in Munich but was arrested. In 1972 he was sentenced to a six-year imprisonment. On 3 March 1975, he was released as part of the Peter Lorenz kidnapping and exchange together with Rolf Pohle, Verena Becker, Ina Siepmann and Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and ended up in South Yemen. In October 1976 he returned undetected to Germany. According to Peter-Jürgen Boock, Heißler and Stefan Wisniewski shot Hanns Martin Schleyer. On 1 November 1978 he and Adelheid Schulz shot two Dutch customs officers, Dionysius de Jong and Johannes Goemans, at a passport control in Kerkrade and seriously injured two more. de Jong died instantly, and Goemans died on 14 November 1978. When he was arrested on 9 June 1979 in Frankfurt, Heissler was seriously injured by a shot in the head but survived. On 10 November 1982, he was sentenced to two life terms plus 15 years for murders and membership in the RAF. On 25 October 2001, he was released on probation.
Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann	1951–1995	Member of Movement 2 June, arrested then freed after the Lorenz kidnapping. Involved in the 1976 OPEC siege led by Carlos the Jackal.
Juliane Plambeck	1952–1980	Member of Munich Red Aid and co-founded Movement 2 June. Arrested in 1975 for involvement in the Lorenz kidnapping, then escaped from detention the following year and went underground. After the dissolution of M2J, she and Inge Viett joined the RAF in 1980. The same year, Plambeck and Wolfgang Beer died in a car crash after stealing a BMW.
Rolf Pohle	1942–2004	First arrested on 17 December 1971 when he attempted to buy thirty-two firearms in a gun shop in Neu-Ulm which the police claimed were meant for the RAF. In 1974 he was sentenced to four years in prison because of membership in a criminal organisation, weapon possession and support activities for the RAF. On 3 March 1975, he was released as part of the Peter Lorenz kidnapping and exchange together with Rolf Heissler, Verena Becker, Ina Siepmann and Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and ended up in South Yemen. On 21 July 1976, he was arrested again in Athens but first extradited to Germany on 1 October after a lengthy negotiation with Greece. On top of his original conviction, he was given a further three years and three months. He was released in 1982 and returned to Greece two years later. Until the outbreak of cancer, he worked as a teacher and translator. Pohle himself continued to deny any profound relations with the RAF. He died on 7 February 2004.
Ina Siepmann	1944-1982?	Arrested in 1974 then released the following year. She is thought to have lived in Lebanon and to have been killed during the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

The Haag/Mayer Group

The Haag/Mayer Group was a minor group of members within the second generation of the RAF. They were recruited by Siegfried Haag, who organised the regrouping of the RAF in the mid 1970s together with Roland Mayer before Brigitte Mohnhaupt took over the leadership after their arrest in 1976. Knut Folkerts from SPK and Verena Becker from J2M were also part of this group.

Haag/Mayer Group

Name	Dates	Notes
Siegfried Haag	1944-	Lawyer for the first generation of the RAF, then member by 1975. He was arrested in 1976 then went underground before being arrested again; he was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment. In detention, he distanced himself from the RAF and he was released in 1987.
Roland Mayer		Arrested in 1976 and sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment, then released in 1988.
Günter Sonnenberg	1954-	Joined the RAF in 1976 and was arrested the following year with Verena Becker in Singen, after he was recognised from a wanted poster. He had been shot in the body and head; hunger-striking prisoners demanded his release in both 1979 and 1981. He was sentenced to two life terms and was mainly held in solitary confinement until his release in 1992.
Knut Folkerts	1952-	Convicted of robbing a gun shop with Willi-Peter Stoll and involvement with the assassination of Siegfried Buback in 1977. Denied the charges and was released in 1995. Also convicted for shooting dead a Dutch policeman during his arrest in Utrecht.
Uwe Folkerts	1948-	Arrested on 5 May 1977 together with Johannes Thimme in connection with the Siegfried Buback assassination. In late 1978 he was found guilty of lending his car to Adelheid Schulz and Sabine Schmitz and sentenced to sixteen months imprisonment. Brother of Knut.

Other second generation members

Haag/Mayer Group

Name	Dates	Notes
Peter-Jürgen Boock	1951-	Husband of Waltraud Boock. Joined the RAF in 1976, left in 1980, arrested in 1981. In 1992, Boock admitted participating in the kidnap of Schleyer, pardoned 1998.
Waltraud Boock	1951-	Wife of Peter-Jürgen Boock, was arrested on 13 December 1976 following an unsuccessful bank raid in Vienna together with Sabine Schmitz. On 4 February 1977 she was sentenced to 15 years.
Karl-Heinz Dellwo	1952-	Took part in the 1975 West German embassy siege in Stockholm. Imprisoned for life in 1977, released 1995.
Monika Helbing	1953-	Joined the RAF in 1974 and was involved in the occupation of the Amnesty International offices in Hamburg. In 1976 she went underground and with Christian Klar and other members form the "Southern German cell" of the RAF. She was involved in the preparation and follow-up of the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer in fall 1977. In 1980 she left the RAF and received asylum and a new identity in East Germany. She was arrested on 14 June 1990 in Frankfurt an der Oder and later on 24 February 1992 she was sentenced to seven years in prison. After her arrest, she cooperated with the police and prosecutors and testified extensively. She was released in 1995 and today lives under a different name.
Hans-Peter Konieczny		Recruited by lawyer Jörg Lang and had just joined the RAF in February 1972, when he on 7 July the same year was cornered by the police in Offenbach. He was persuaded to cooperate and set up Klaus Jünschke and Irmgard Möller, who was easily captured by the police. Konieczny was released from custody two months later.
Silke Maier-Witt	1950-	Minor involvement in the kidnap of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and broke away from the RAF in 1979. She escaped into East Germany to avoid arrest and lived there until her capture in 1990. She served five years in jail before going on to work as a peace activist in Kosovo.
Adelheid Schulz	1955-	Wwas arrested with Brigitte Mohnhaupt in 1982 and imprisoned on three life sentences in 1985. Pardoned in 2002.
Angelika Speitel	1952-	Joined the RAF in 1977, the following year was shot in the leg and arrested. She was sentenced to life imprisonment and pardoned in 1998.
Volker Speitel	1950-	Worked in Klaus Croissant's office and was arrested in 1977 together with Rosemarie Preiss on a train in Puttgarden. He cooperated with the police and prosecutors, receiving the status of a crown witness.
Sigrid Sternebeck	1949-	Moved to Hamburg in 1971 and met Susanne Albrecht, Silke Maier-Witt, Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Monika Helbing and Bernhard Rössner. In 1977 she joined the RAF and went underground. In 1980 she left the RAF and received asylum and a new identity in East Germany. She was arrested on 15 June 1990 in Schwedt together with her husband, Ralf Baptist Friedrich. After her arrest, she cooperated with the police and prosecutors and on 22 June 1992 sentenced to eight and a half years in prison due to her participation in a murder attempt on Alexander Haig and the assassination of Hanns Martin Schleyer. Today she lives under a different name in Northern Germany.
Willi-Peter Stoll	1950-1978	A RAF member directly involved with the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer. He was said to have changed mentally after the event, and he became depressed and withdrew from the RAF. On 6 September 1978, Stoll was having dinner in a Chinese restaurant in the Red Light District in Düsseldorf when he was approached by police. He drew his gun and a shoot-out followed that resulted in Stoll's death.
Johannes Thimme	1956-1985	Served two prison sentences before dying in 1985, when the bomb that he was leaving at the Association for the Development of Air and Space Industries in Stuttgart went off.
Christof Wackernagel	1951-	Joined RAF in 1977 and arrested same year in Amsterdam together with Gert Schneider. Released from prison in 1987, moved to Mali.
Rolf Clemens Wagner	1944-	Joined RAF 1976, arrested after bank heist in Switzerland, imprisoned for life then pardoned in 2003.
Claudia Wannersdorfer		Wounded by the explosion of a bomb she and Johannes Thimme were leaving outside the Association for the Development of Air and Space Industries in Stuttgart in 1985. She was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Stefan Wisniewski	1953-	Arrested in 1978, in Paris, on his way to Yugoslavia.

Third generation Red Army Faction (1982–1998)

This generation was active mostly throughout the 1980s and early 1990s until the group disbanded in 1998.

Third generation RAF

Name	Dates	Notes
Wolfgang Grams	1953-1993	Considered a leader of the third generation. Arrested and shot dead in Bad Kleinen in 1993, during a botched policing operation.
Eva Haule	1954-	Went underground in 1984, was arrested in 1986, and after being sentenced remained in prison until 2007.
Birgit Hogefeld	1956-	Considered a leader of the third generation. Arrested in Bad Kleinen in 1993, during a botched operation in which Grams died. After being sentenced for her involvement in the assassination of Detlef Rohwedder, Hogefeld remained in prison until 2011.
Daniela Klette	1958-	Suspected perpetrator of a bungled attempt to rob an armoured security van near Bremen in June 2015, Arrested in Berlin in February 2024.
Burkhard Garweg		Suspected perpetrator of a bungled attempt to rob an armoured security van near Bremen in June 2015,
Ernst-Volker Staub		Suspected perpetrator of a bungled attempt to rob an armoured security van near Bremen in June 2015,

Further reading

• Aust, Stefan (2008). Baader-Meinhof Complex. Vintage. ISBN 978-1-84792-045-4.
• Becker, Jillian (1981). "The Red Army Faction: Another final battle on the stage of history" (PDF). Terrorism. 5 (1/2): 1–4. doi:10.1080/10576108108435505. Retrieved 20 December 2008.
• Becker, Jillian (1998). Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang. Diane Publishing Company. ISBN 0-7881-5472-9.
• Boock, Peter-Jürgen (2002). Die Entführung und Ermordung des Hanns-Martin Schleyer (in German). Eichborn. ISBN 3-8218-3976-7.
• Dartnell, Michael York (1995). Action directe: ultra-left terrorism in France, 1979–1987. Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-4566-4.
• Schiller, Margrit (1999). "Es war ein harter Kampf um meine Erinnerung" : ein Lebensbericht aus der RAF. Konkret Literatur Verlag. ISBN 3-89458-181-6.
• Strassner, Alexander (2003). Die dritte Generation der "Roten Armee Fraktion": Entstehung, Struktur, Funktionslogik und Zerfall einer terroristischen Organisation (in German). VS Verlag. ISBN 3-531-14114-7.
• Vague, Tom (1994). Televisionaries: The Red Army Faction Story, 1963–1993. Rev Update edition (August 1994). AK Press. ISBN 1-873176-47-3.