Rote Armee Facktion (Red Army Faction)

The RAF was created sometime after the second world war in response to lack of change within the government in Germany from Nazi control. Eventually the group turned towards anti-imperialism, anti-war and against police brutality. The RAF was fairly popular is their cause having the support of ¼ of the German public. The RAF was run by three main generations of activists. The original founding member are the ones who gave the group the nickname of the Baader-Meinhof group. The founding members were Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. The second generation operated in the mid to late 70s after most of the original members were caught and jailed. The third generation operated in the 80s and 90s and as pointed out in the movie, the Baader Meinhof Complex, many of the third generation had never met the founding members and even operated under false ideals. Throughout the generations, an escalation in violence occurred that drifted from the first generation’s anti-violence towards civilians. The RAF finally dissolved as late as 1998 probably since the group lost track of all the ideals and lost so much public interest and support. I think the fate of the RAF, in that new member lose the original ideals and escalate the violence, is similar to today’s terrorists. Terrorist attacks all over the world occur from people as young as teenagers who have little to nothing to do with the wars happening across the world. Terrorist actions such as this surprises both government officials and communities from where the attacks come from. I doubt anyone can know what people who are in control of real terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda think of the random attacks around the globe.