Red Army Faction - Reflexions

Red Army Faction

The RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) or Red Army Faction is an urban guerrilla group created in Germany in 1968. The first resounding act carried out by this group, founded mainly by Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin (joined later by Ulrike Meinhof) was the explosion of hand made bombs in Frankfurt supermarkets in 1968. They carried out numerous attacks, kidnappings and assassinations. Its two most spectacular acts were the exploding of a bomb in the generally American neighbourhood in Heidelberg and the kidnapping of the German boss of bosses, Hans Martin Schleyer on 5th September 1977. The RAF was of Maoist inspiration and advocated the liberation of every individual through the use of arms. It remained active, albeit to a lesser degree, up until the beginning of the 1990s, not being able to survive the collapse of the Berlin Wall (1989).