Left-wing extremism: German police step up search for former RAF terrorists

German police have released new photos and videos of three former Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorists who are linked to at least nine robberies. The suspects allegedly robbed an armored car last year with a bazooka.

After decades of searching for three former members of the leftist Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group, German police published new videos and photos of the suspects on Monday in the hopes of getting a concrete lead.

Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg and Daniela Klette are suspected of carrying out nine robberies in northern Germany after years hiding from authorities.

Police released these photos of Burkhard Garweg (L) and Ernst-Volker Staub (R)

Lower Saxony's state criminal police office circulated videos which allegedly depict 63-year-old Staub and 49-year-old Garweg carrying out an armed robbery at a supermarket in the northern German town of Hildesheim last May.

Another video shows the two men riding a bus in the city of Osnabrück, with police drawing attention to the types of bags the men were carrying with them. Police did not provide any updated images of 59-year-old Klette.

One of the police videos shows Garweg (front) getting on a bus with Staub (behind) carrying heavy bags

The Lower Saxony police said that although the suspects could still be in Germany, the possibility that they may be hiding in another European country "could not be ruled out."

They said the trio could be in the Netherlands, Italy, France or Spain, using their former leftist ties to evade police.

Ernst-Volker Wilhelm Staub, Daniela Klette and Burkhard Garweg

The total haul from the robberies, which took place between 2011 and 2016, is estimated to be worth hundreds of thousands of euros.

The group tended to mostly target grocery stores, although businesses and armored cars were robbed as well.

Police said the ex-RAF members most recent robbery took place in a central German town last June where two men and a woman robbed an armored car while wielding automatic weapons and a bazooka.

After three decades of carrying out a campaign of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and bank robberies across Germany, the RAF disbanded in 1998.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Films about far-left German terrorist group RAF

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.

Author: Anna Seibt (kbm, ct)

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German police investigate links to former RAF terrorists in new armed robbery

Authorities in Germany are investigating whether three fugitives of the far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) were behind an attack on an armored vehicle. The trio has already been linked to a string of similar robberies. (27.06.2016)

Ex-Red Army Faction members tied to heist

Former members of the leftist militant Red Army Faction have been linked to a botched robbery of an armored van. The RAF disbanded in 1998 after a campaign of terror across Germany that went on for several decades. (19.01.2016)

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. (05.09.2017)

Date 13.11.2017
Related SubjectsGermany
KeywordsGermany, Red Army Faction, RAF, Daniela Klette, Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg, armed robbery
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German police release new photos of former RAF terrorists 19.05.2016

German authorities have published new images of former RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg. The two men are part of a trio, wanted on suspicion of attempted murder and attempted aggravated robbery.

Ex-Red Army Faction members tied to heist 19.01.2016

German police investigate links to former RAF terrorists in new armed robbery 27.06.2016

Date 13.11.2017
Related SubjectsGermany
KeywordsGermany, Red Army Faction, RAF, Daniela Klette, Ernst-Volker Staub, Burkhard Garweg, armed robbery
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News Bulletin

Ernst-Volker Staub

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German terrorists come out of retirement to rob, police say

Updated 1239 GMT (2039 HKT) May 30, 2016

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Story highlights

Police release photos of three former radicals accused in attempted robberies
The trio are former members of the Baader-Meinhof Group, a radical leftist terror group

(CNN) Police in Germany are appealing for sightings of former members of the infamous far-left Baader-Meinhof terror group, who appear to have come out retirement to attempt armed robberies to fund their lives on the run.

Two attempted armed robberies

Deadly left-wing radicals

CNN's Stephanie Halasz contributed to this report.

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The New York Times

January 19, 2016

BERLIN — The German police have intensified their decades-long search for three members of the Red Army Faction, believed to be on the run since their far-left guerrilla group disbanded in 1998, after prosecutors said on Tuesday that they had linked them to at least one botched robbery last year.

For more than two decades, federal prosecutors have had an arrest warrant out for Ernst-Volker Staub, 61, Burkhard Garweg, 47, and Daniela Marie-Luise Klette, 57, on suspicion of involvement in actions by the Red Army Faction, or R.A.F. These include the 1993 bombing of a prison in Weiterstadt, near Frankfurt.

The group emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s when its members terrorized West Germany through a series of kidnappings, bombings and killings. Its members killed 34 people in an attempt to overthrow the capitalist government and fight what they saw as American imperialism. The last convicted R.A.F. member to have served time in jail, Birgit Hogefeld, was released in 2011 after serving 18 years of a life sentence for murder.

Prosecutors in Verden, near the northern city of Bremen, said on Tuesday that they had begun a fresh investigation of the three fugitives on suspicion of attempted murder and robbery in conjunction with a bungled attempt in June to storm an armored security van stocked with cash. The group may also have been involved in another failed robbery of a similarly cash-laden transporter in December in Wolfsburg, also in northern Germany, but the authorities said evidence was still being evaluated.

Marie-Louise Tartz, a spokeswoman for state prosecutors in Verden, said the group had been identified by analyzing DNA traces secured from two vehicles in the crime. Ms. Tartz said the forensic research could take several months in many cases, based on the quality of the evidence available.

Federal and state prosecutors said that they did not believe the three suspects had been driven by terrorist motives, and that it appeared they had sought to carry out the robberies for purely financial reasons. “It is to be presumed that the crime was intended to finance a life lived underground,” state prosecutors in Verden said in a statement.

The police used helicopters to search for the fugitives after they fled the scene of the attempted robbery in June, but found nothing. According to witnesses, the suspects, armed with automatic rifles, used a white Volkswagen van to block the armored carrier and opened fire, but failed to open the doors of the vehicle. No one was injured.

The Red Army Faction, originally called the Baader-Meinhof gang, followed a Marxist-Leninist ideology and initially targeted American interests in West Germany. These included the United States Embassy in Bad Godesberg in 1991 and a bomb attack on an administrative building of the Deutsche Bank in 1990. Ms. Klette has been sought in both of those crimes.

In 1999, more than a year after the group disbanded, Ms. Klette, Mr. Staub and Mr. Garweg threatened the driver of an armored vehicle with an automatic rifle and a rocket-propelled grenade. That time they made off with more than one million German marks.

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Germany's far-left fugitives suspected in more crimes

Three fugitives of Germany's far-left Red Army Faction have been blamed for at least six supermarket heists including the most recent one in May. Police had earlier linked the militants to money transporter attacks.

Authorities now believe that Ernst-Volker Staub, Daniela Klette and Burkhard Garweg (pictured left to right) have been involved in more crimes than previously thought.

The Red Army Faction (RAF) militants have been at large for decades and were blamed mostly for attacks on money vans.

The RAF was active in the 1970s and 80s and has been charged with bombings, kidnappings and killings.

"The investigations… show that the suspects in the money transporter attacks… could also have carried out the attacks at supermarket cash offices," the prosecutors in Germany's northern state of Lower Saxony said.

"The culprits are believed to be short of money, hence further attacks cannot be ruled out," they warned.

Authorities said the fugitives stole between 46,000 and 100,000 euros ($52,200-$113,500) in two heists, except for the most recent one on May 7, when they escaped with only a guard's firearm in their possession.

Police said they had drawn a connection between six robberies across Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein states due to a similar modus operandi over the past five years.

Staub, 61, Garweg, 47, and Klette 57, are believed to be hiding in Germany or in neighboring countries. The security officials recently traced a telephone call made to a car-seller from the Netherlands believed to be from one of the fugitives.

The anti-capitalist RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, emerged out of the radicalized fringe of the 1960s student protest movement.

The group, which had links to several Middle Eastern militant organizations, declared itself disbanded in 1998.

Staub, Garweg and Klette are also wanted in a 1993 bomb attack against an under-construction prison in Hesse state.

DW recommends

German police release new photos of former RAF terrorists

Date 07.06.2016
KeywordsRAF, Red Army Faction, Ernst-Volker Staub, Burhard Garweg, Daniela Klette, heist, robbery, far-left, transporter attacks
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Left-wing extremism: German police step up search for former RAF terrorists 13.11.2017

Ex-Red Army Faction members tied to heist 19.01.2016

German police release new photos of former RAF terrorists 19.05.2016

Date 07.06.2016
KeywordsRAF, Red Army Faction, Ernst-Volker Staub, Burhard Garweg, Daniela Klette, heist, robbery, far-left, transporter attacks
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