page_title: Red Army Faction
section_title: "Stammheim Death Night"
hierarchical_section_title: Red Army Faction / German Autumn / "Stammheim Death Night"
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Grabstätte Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin und Jan Carl Raspe auf dem Dornhaldenfriedhof in Stuttgart - Degerloch
context_page_description: The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant organization founded in 1970. Key early figures included Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof, among others. Ulrike Meinhof was involved in Baader's escape from jail in 1970. The West German/German government as well as most Western media and literature considered the Red Army Faction to be a terrorist organization.
  The Red Army Faction engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies and shoot-outs with police over the course of three decades. Their activity peaked in late 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn". The RAF has been held responsible for thirty-four deaths, including many secondary targets, such as chauffeurs and bodyguards, as well as many injuries throughout its almost thirty years of activity. Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than the Revolutionary Cells, which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995.
  Sometimes the group is talked about in terms of generations:
context_section_description: After the successful conclusion of the Landshut hostage crisis was announced in the late evening of 17 October, all the RAF members incarcerated in Stammheim committed suicide during the following night. Their laywer, Arndt Müller, had smuggled pistols into the prison. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves with these weapons while Gudrun Ensslin hanged herself. Irmgard Möller tried to kill herself with a knife, but survived severely injured. The suicides went unnoticed until early next morning. Doctors were rushed in. Baader and Ensslin were already dead when found. Raspe was still alive and moved to the hospital where he died soon after. Möller recovered after being brought to a hospital.
  The suicide of the imprisoned RAF leadership led to a significant media echo. The coordinated attempt sparked numerous conspiracy theories. It was alleged that the RAF members did not kill themselves, but instead were killed by the German authorities, the BND, CIA, the United States and NATO. These theories were spread by RAF supporters and sympathizers; some of them even taken up by the mainstream press. Available evidence shows that these suicides were planned and prepared for a long time by the RAF members.
  On the very same day, Hanns-Martin Schleyer was shot to death by his captors en route to Mulhouse, France. On 19 October, Schleyer's kidnappers announced that he had been "executed" and pinpointed his location. His body was recovered later that day in the trunk of a green Audi 100 on Rue Charles Péguy. The French newspaper Libération received a letter declaring:
  After 43 days we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence... His death is meaningless to our pain and our rage... The struggle has only begun. Freedom through armed, anti-imperialist struggle.
caption: Burial site of Baader, Raspe and Ensslin
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