RAF Involvement
In 1968 Baader and his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin were convicted of the arson bombing of a department store in Frankfurt am Main to protest the public's "indifference" to the genocide in Vietnam. DM675,000 in damage was caused; no-one was injured or killed.
After being sentenced, Baader and Ensslin fled in November 1969. They were smuggled out of West Germany by sympathizers and made the tour of the left-wing communities of France, Switzerland, and Italy before re-entering West Germany covertly.
Baader was later caught at a traffic stop for speeding on 4 April 1970. He produced a fake driver's license in the name of famous writer Peter Chotjewitz, but was placed under arrest when he failed to answer personal questions like the names and ages of Chotjewitz's children.
Ensslin masterminded an escape plan. Journalist Ulrike Meinhof and Baader's lawyers concocted a false "book deal" in which Meinhof would interview Baader. A few weeks later, in May 1970, he was allowed to meet her at the library of the Berlin Zentralinstitut outside the prison, without handcuffs but escorted by two armed guards. Meinhof was allowed to join him. Confederates Irene Goergens and Ingrid Schubert entered the library carrying suitcases, then opened a door to admit a masked gunman armed with a pistol and then drew pistols out of suitcases. They then fired shots that wounded a 64-year-old librarian, hitting him in his liver. Baader, the masked gunman, and the three women then fled through a window.
The group became known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Baader and others then spent some time in a Fatah military training camp in Jordan before being expelled due to "differences in attitudes". Back in Germany, Baader robbed banks and bombed buildings from 1970 to 1972. Although he never obtained a driving licence, Baader was obsessed with driving. He regularly stole expensive sports cars for use by the gang, and was arrested driving an Iso Rivolta IR300.
On 1 June 1972, Baader and fellow RAF members Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins were apprehended after a lengthy shootout in Frankfurt.
Read more about this topic: Andreas Baader
Famous quotes containing the word involvement:
“Not only do our wives need support, but our children need our deep involvement in their lives. If this period [the early years] of primitive needs and primitive caretaking passes without us, it is lost forever. We can be involved in other ways, but never again on this profoundly intimate level.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)