Andreas Baader
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Andreas Baader |
Andreas Bernd Baader (
May 6,
1943 â€"
October 18,
1977) was the first leader of the
German revolutionary organization
Red Army Faction, commonly known as
the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Born in
Munich, Baader was a high school
dropout and petty criminal before his RAF involvement, and was one of the few members of the terrorist movement who did not attend a university.
In
1968, Baader and his girlfriend
Gudrun Ensslin were convicted of the arson bombing of a department store in
Frankfurt am Main. Two years later he escaped from custody, aided by journalist
Ulrike Meinhof, giving rise to the term Baader-Meinhof Group.
Baader, Meinhof and other gang members were expelled from a
Fedayeen training camp in
Jordan in 1970.
From
1970 to
1972, Baader robbed banks and bombed buildings.
On
June 1,
1972, he and fellow RAF members
Jan-Carl Raspe and
Holger Meins were apprehended in a lengthy shootout in Frankfurt.
Baader was then convicted in what was the longest and most expensive trial in German history.
To pressure German authorities into releasing Baader and other imprisoned members, on
September 5,
1977, the RAF abducted then German employers' association president and former
SS officer
Hanns Martin Schleyer. When the authorities refused to comply with their demands, the RAF tried to exert additional pressure by hijacking the
Lufthansa plane
Landshut. On
October 18 1977, the day after the
GSG 9 raided Landshut in
Mogadishu,
Somalia, and ended the hijacking, Andreas Baader died in his prison cell from a gunshot wound. The same day, Gudrun Ensslin and
Jan-Carl Raspe were also found dead in their prison cells at
Stammheim. RAF member
Irmgard Möller was found wounded in her cell after supposedly stabbing herself in the chest, but survived. Though all official inquiries on the matter concluded that Baader and his two accomplices committed suicide, sympathizers and Irmgard Möller persist that the deaths had been
extrajudicial executions.
In
2002, director
Christopher Roth released a film about Baader titled
Baader.
*
Klaus Rainer Röhl*
Wolfgang Grams*
Members of the Red Army Faction*http://www.baader-meinhof.com/
*
Breaking Comrade Baader Out
