Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The RAF

The Rote Armee Fraktion" RAF was formed in 1970. The group was post WWII and Germany’s most famous left-wing militant group. It started out as the group called Baader-Meinhof known for protest movements in West Germany. “The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist "urban guerrilla" group engaged in armed resistance against what they deemed to be a fascist state.”(Wikipedia sited below) The founders also known as the “first generation” of this group were Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof.  The “second generation” consisted of a lot of former members of the Socialist Patients Collective during the 1970s and the “third generation” was during the 1980s-1990s. The group did a lot of operations and the most remember able one was during the fall of 1977 called “German Autumn”. “German Autumn” was responsible for 34 deaths many of them being not their targets but body guards and chauffeurs instead. The RAF was known for being one of the most violent left wing groups in all of Europe. A very well known member was Meinhof, she was involved with Baader’s escape from jail in 1970, and she was a well-known journalist. On April 20, 1998 all came to an end when the Reuters news agency received letter signed “RAF”. 

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