Finally available again, this is the very best accounting of the Baader-Meinhof era. Highest recommendation.

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Product Description

Rooted in the student movement of the 1960s, the story of the Baader-Meinhof group - or the Red Army Faction (RAF), as they called themselves - began in May 1970 with the freeing of Andreas Baader, imprisoned for setting fire to department stores in protest against the Vietnam War. After thirty years of violent confrontation with the German state - costing the lives of 34 politicians and industrialists, chauffeurs and policemen - it ended on 20 April 1998 with a declaration sent to the Reuters news agency: 'Almost 28 years ago, on 17 May 1970, the RAF arose in a campaign of liberation. Today we end this project. The urban guerrilla in the shape of the RAF is now history.' The 'war of 6 against 60 million' (Heinrich Boll) led to the mass mobilisation of police and security services, culminating in the 'German Autumn' of 1977 when RAF violence reached its peak with the kidnapping and murder of the industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of a Lufthansa jet by Palestinian terrorists to secure the release of the key members of the group, then serving life sentences.When they heard news that the jet had been freed by German special forces in Mogadischu, the founder members Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin committed suicide; Ulrike Meinhof had hanged herself the previous year while on trial. This fascinating book tells the story of how a small group of young middle-class people, out of moral indignation about the Vietnam War and the injustices of capitalist society, turned to bombings, kidnappings and murder - thus resorting to flagrant immorality themselves. And for once the strapline is true: their story reads like a thriller.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24829 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
filled with fascinating information and piquant details
--Literary Review

Review
`Stephen Aust's meticulously researched chronicle of German left-wing terrorism.'

Review
`Stefan Aust is well placed to write the history of the most notorious of several terrorist groups'

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Customer Reviews

Best history of the RAF in English.
I first read this in the 1980s, and it was then out of print for ages,being republished now as the film "The Baader-Meinhof Complex" (based on this)was released earlier this year.
This isn't the 1980s book,it has been substantially revised and updated,with some of the new material emerging from the Stasi archives after unification in 1989.Stefan Aust worked together with Ulrike Meinhof before she went undergraound in 1970, and so is one of the few outsiders to know one of the founders of the RAF(Red Army Faction) personally.He pulls few punches,noting that the armed struggle("the struggle of 6 against 60 million" as Heinrich Boll quite correctly pointed out)was a disaster for the left in Germany and more generally across Europe.It served only to strengthen police and security services,alienate ordinary citizens from leftist activists,and led to the untimely deaths of people who shouldn't have died, and didn't deserve to die.
Inside Stammheim prison after 1972,the leadership of the RAF fragmented and was divided aginst each other-not widely known,but Aust describes it well.
In retrospect,the climax of this period of German history is "The German Autumn" of 1977,the low points being the kidnapping of Schleyer,the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane,eventually stormed by German commandos in Mogadishu,Somalia,and the suicides of the remaining RAF leaders in Stammheim.Aust gives an excellent description of the coordination of activities of Palestinians and Germans,mainly directed from Iraq.He also has interviews with the German leadership,including General Wegner,the commander of the German special forces,the GSG 9.
One thing comes out of his description of these times,which is that Andreas Baader,in his discussions with German officials,more or less agreed that if the leadership of the RAF were flown off into exile,they wouldn't return to Germany and/or bother the German authorities again.So much for the people's war-so long as Baader,Eneslin et al were safe in South Yemen or Iraq,the revolution could wait.In their own way,the RAF leaders were every bit as corrupt and immoral as the bourgeois leadership of western Europe that they professed to hate
Autumn 1977 was pretty much the end of far-left terrorism in Germany,and the underground RAF eventually threw in the towel in the 1990s.Aust's history is a brilliant description of modern German history,which still has echoes even today.Last week,an RAF prisoner was released after 26 years in prison-it isn't quite all in the past.

Balanced, well-informed and readable, but a little fragmented and journalistic
I agree with much of the sentiments in the above review - it is by far the best and most balanced book on the subject in English, avoiding the mythologization of RAF's futile and delusionary 'armed struggle' characteristic of some later English language works while giving some clue into motivations and characters of Baader et al. Paradoxically, this refusal to demonize the RAF tends to underline their brutality and moral culpability, at least in my view, although the book is not didactic and leaves plenty of scope for readers to reach their own conclusions.

The book's only really weakness apart from some, in places, clunky translation from the German is its fragmented structure and highly journalistic style - it reads as series of vignettes or a compendium of high class news magazine articles. This makes for a fast and compelling read with some distinctly filmic qualities - it's easy to see why the book has been turned into a movie - but left me wanting to know more about the social and political background that spawned the RAF and also the psychology, background and personalities of those individuals who became active terrorists (Clearly, many, indeed most, German radicals of 1960s and 1970s chose other paths). Given that the context of the RAF is so historically distant, especially for English language readers, this would help avoid the tendency (evident in the film of the book) to reduce the "German Autumn" to a sort of Maoist Bonnie and Clyde.

An additional point not picked up by Aust (or the excellent above review) is that British SAS troops participated alongside German police special forces in the operation to free hostages in Mogadishu. The recently published Special Forces Heroes has the whole story.

Insight into a the post war German Teerorists
In no other country in Europe has political theory and violence been so important in making the modern state. From the decline and demise of imperial Germany in 1918 through the street fighing of the Spartikists and the Frei Korps to the political leagues of the 1920 and 30's to rise of Naziism Germany is a country imbued in Political violence.
The urban guerilla warfare of the 1960's and 1970's was a continuation of this theme of politcal violence. Developing in West Berlin in the shadow of the wall and the memories of soviet represion in the Eastern half of the city in the 1950's. The Badder Meinhof complex charts the story of radical youth against a conservative society; through the protests against the vietnam war and the visit of the Shah of Iran and the first deaths through to a full underground gueruilla war.
This work does more than list the outrages commited it details the links betwen the Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof gropup, the East German Statsi and international Arab terrorism which led to the raid on Entebee, followed by the sucide of the main group members in Stamhiem Prison

A throughly well research history of two troubled deccades in German history overlooked by many due to the shadow of the cold war and impending Nuclear inihilation.