 depicted the group as part of a Soviet- backed 'international terrorism' intended to destabilise Western democracy.
This notoriety tended to give the RAF more power than it actually possessed. Right-wing politicians and the sensationalist Springer press routinely exaggerated the group's capabilities and presented a dark picture of a German society riddled with 'terrorist subcultures' and their 'intellectual sympathisers'.
The anti-terrorist hysteria peaked in October 1977, when Schleyer was kidnapped by 'second generation' RAF members in an attempt to gain the release of Andreas Baader and other imprisoned gang leaders.
When the government rejected these demands, four RAF members and a Palestinian hijacked a Lufthansa passenger plane and threatened to blow it up. On October 18, West Germany's elite anti-terrorist unit successfully stormed the plane on the runway at Mogadishu. But the state's victory was undermined by the suicides of Baader and his comrades in the top-security |
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| Brigitte Mohnhaupt (above) is due to be released after serving 24 years of her life sentence |
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Stammheim prison that same night. The next day the RAF "put an end to the corrupt and miserable existence of Hans Martin Schleyer", the epitome of everything they hated about the society they called 'the Raspberry Reich'.
At the height of the 'German Autumn', some feared terrorism might provoke a far-right backlash and topple democracy. These anxieties did not materialise. Instead, the state adopted a less hysterical response to its terrorist emergency. Though the RAF's descendants continued to carry out sporadic bombings and murders for another two more decades, these actions were never regarded as a national security threat.
The release of the last imprisoned members of the group constitutes a footnote to this bleak period of German history. For a world mired in the 'war on terror' there are lessons to be learned from the way West Germany converted Baader-Meinhof into an obsession that was made to seem more dangerous than it ever actually was. It's a lesson Bush and Blair seem determined to ignore. 
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2007
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