The Neutralization of the Red Army Faction

Abstract

In the 20 years preceding its unification with the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) had lived with terrorist attacks. This chapter concentrates on the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction or RAF) which has perpetrated most of these attacks and was the longest-lasting and most virulent extremist group in the Republic. It is impossible to tell when this particular kind of criminality will come to an end, though within the band of opinion still broadly known as the ‘New Left’ the RAF is now largely isolated and what once appeared to present a serious challenge to the state has been reduced to an isolated group of disgruntled individuals. The RAF is no longer able to disseminate its policy or justify its operations to anyone outside its own reduced circle, but the murder of the Deutsche Bank chief, Alfred Herrhausen, on 30 November 1989, and the attempt on the life of Hans Neusel in July 1990 showed that it is nevertheless capable of further attacks. It still has a small hard-core membership and it seems able to recruit new members; what is more, now that it is thrown back upon itself its attacks will probably be more precipitate, more difficult to predict and more brutal than they were in the past.