Red Army Faction

Red Army Faction
Rote Armee Fraktion
Founders	Andreas Baader Ulrike Meinhof Gudrun Ensslin Horst Mahler
Dates of operation	14 May 1970 – 20 April 1998
Ideology	Revolutionary Socialism Anti-Fascism factions: Marxism-Leninism Maoism
Allies	GDR
Opponents	FRG NATO

The Red Army Faction (German: Rote Armee Fraktion; RAF) was a communist urban guerrilla organization in West Germany. They participated in many actions against Imperialist and Capitalist forces, including the bombings of US Army bases and police stations, an attack on the West German embassy in Sweden, the killing of Nazi lawyer and federal prosecutor general Siegfried Buback and prominent Nazi Hanns-Martin Schleyer. After the imprisonment of many of their leaders, many of their allies and supporters around the world took action to try to free them, including the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, in which the freedom of RAF prisoners was a demand. In order to stop these efforts, the West German government, possibly with the help of allies in Nato, murdered Ulrike Meinhof in 1976 and later on 17 October 1977 murdered Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, with Irmgard Möller surviving. These deaths were all called suicides. After the deaths of these members the Red Army Faction continued to carry out attacks until it was dissolved in 1998.