A German prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said Daniela Klette, one of three fugitive members of the far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) terror group, had been arrested.
German police had been searching for the trio, suspected of attempted murder and a series of armed robberies after decades on the run.
What do we know so far?
The public prosecutor’s office in the town of Verden in Lower Saxony said the 65-year-old was caught in Berlin on Monday.
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“We have an arrest of Ms. Klette,” said Koray Freudenberg, senior public prosecutor, whose office is investigating Klette and fellow suspects Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg.
The three are said to have tried to use a series of robberies between 1999 and 2016 to finance their lives underground.
After a television program recently profiled the case, investigators in Lower Saxony — where many of the robberies took place — said they had received 161 tips about the suspects’ potential whereabouts.
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What did the RAF terror group do?
The three are said to have belonged to the so-called third generation of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof group.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the RAF conducted a campaign of terror in then-West Germany through attacks and kidnappings, with a total of more than 30 murders attributed to the group. Authorities say the RAF was responsible for wounding another 200 people.
The group’s activities reached a zenith amid a major manhunt for RAF members in the so-called “German Autumn” of 1977.
Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF
From bombings and kidnappings to murders, the far-left militant group Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorized West Germany in the 1970s. Learn more about the group and their acts from these films made about them.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The harsh reality on the big screen
Whether it was the murder of business executive and industry representative Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the early RAF court trials or the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane, the far-left militant group Red Army Faction (RAF) brought a wave of terror onto West Germany in the 1970s. Their actions have since inspired a number of filmmakers.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Collateral damage
In “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,” a young woman played by Angela Winkler has an affair with an alleged terrorist, drawing the attention of the police, the judiciary system and the press. The 1975 film by Volker Schlöndorrf, based on a book by Heinrich Böll, is a fictional story based on the left-wing terrorism that took place in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Dürrwald
11-part reflection of the times
“‘Germany in Autumn’ is not a ‘good’ film, but an important one,” wrote Die Zeit. The 1978 film, comprised of 11 episodes, brought together top German directors including Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. Reflecting the socio-political climate of West Germany in the 1970s, this film was also based on a work by Nobel Prize-winning author Heinrich Böll.
Image: Imago/United Archives
A question of violence
“Knife in the Head,” starring Bruno Ganz as Dr. Hoffmann, was a 1978 blockbuster in West Germany. During a police raid, he is shot in the head but survives. But is he a victim of police brutality or terrorism? No one seems to know – not even Hoffmann, who loses his memory in the shooting.
Image: Filmfest München
Sisters on the front lines
Margarethe von Trotta’s 1981 film “Marianne and Juliane” is a fictionalized account based on the biographies of two real-life sisters and pastor’s daughters, Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin. Both are active in politics. While one is a quiet pragmatist, the other joins the RAF and is later found dead in her prison cell. The film helped von Trotta make her international breakthrough.
Image: Imago/United Archives
A 192-day trial
About 10 years after the Stammheim trial of RAF co-founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, filmmaker Reinhard Hauff devoted a new film to the subject of RAF terrorism. Based on authentic protocols, “Stammheim” (1986) reconstructs the 192-day trial in 1975. The narrative is limited to the protocol reproduction and does not include any commentary.
Image: picture-alliance/BIOSKOP/Ronald Grant Archive
Life after RAF?
“The State I Am In” is a 2000 film by Christian Petzold about life after being part of the RAF. A couple who defied the German state in the 1970s lives underground with their daughter for years out of fear of being caught. While the parents are plagued by paranoia, the daughter decides to break out of hiding.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Pegasos
Crossing borders
Another story of life in hiding, this time in the former East Germany, is Volker Schlöndorff’s “The Legend of Rita.” In the film from 2000, left-wing terrorists go underground in East Germany in the 1970s with the help of the Stasi. After German reunification, their cover is blown and they are shot and killed while trying to escape. Several RAF members really did attempt to hide in East Germany.
Image: picture-alliance/Berliner Zeitung
A true story of two deaths
The documentary film released in 2001 by director Andres Veiel, “Black Box BRD” offers a counter-narrative in which surprising parallels open up. On the one side there is Alfred Herrhausen, spokesperson for Deutsche Bank’s board of directors, who was murdered by the RAF. On the other side is RAF member Wolfgang Grams, whose violent death also raises questions.
Image: X Verleih
The Baader-Meinhof Complex
Perhaps the best-known film about the RAF, “The Baader-Meinhof Complex” (2008) provides the terrorist group’s back story and their actions based on a book of the same name written by Stefan Aust. The film received mixed reviews, with some critics claiming it mystified the RAF – in part due to a star cast including Moritz Bleibtreu as Andreas Baader and Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Constantin Film
The lawyers behind the far-left
In “Die Anwälte – Eine deutsche Geschichte” (The Lawyers – A German Story) from 2009, the careers of Otto Schily, Hans-Christian Ströbele and Horst Mahler are traced from their days as attorneys for the left-wing political opposition in the 1970s to the present. Schily (right) became interior minister; Ströbele (left) joined the Greens party; Mahler is a right-wing extremist and Holocaust denier.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Kalaene
A complex love triangle
Andres Veiel made his feature film debut in 2011, in “If Not Us, Who?” The story of an emotional and sexual love triangle follows RAF co-founder Gudrun Ensslin and Bernward Vesper, son of a Nazi poet, as they fall in love, get married and have a child. But then Ensslin leaves the family and follows Andreas Baader into the RAF underground.
The RAF’s victims included West German Attorney General Siegfried Buback, Dresdner Bank boss Jürgen Ponto, Deutsche Bank chairman Alfred Herrhausen, business executive Hans Martin Schleyer, and senior West German diplomat Gerold von Braunmühl.
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The RAF declared itself disbanded in 1998 and there is no evidence that the former terrorist organization is still active.
Police and special armed units stormed the western German city of Wuppertal’s central train station earlier this month after receiving a tip suggesting former left-wing terrorist Ernst-Volker Staub may have been sighted on a train there. Authorities said the initial suspicions about the man’s identity were not confirmed.
