The film Die Stille nach dem Schuss is loosely based on Baader-Meinhof, an anarchist group responsible for a series of bank robberies and assassinations in West Germany during the 1970s. Baader- Meinhof was also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gruppe and Baader-Meinhof Bande. During what was called The Crisis Years or the post-war Decade of Terror, many people were actively involved while others showed their support - they were often called "Sympathisanten". Because of the escalating violence, Baader Meinhof lost the popular support it had in the beginning (mostly but not only from people involved in the Student Movement of the late 60s).

The Red Army Faction

The Baader-Meinhof Group/Gang came into being on 2 April 1968, when Andreas Baader and his girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, bombed a department store. Two years later famed left-wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof helped to break Baader out of prison in Berlin, in May 1970. The name Baader-Meinhof was not used until after Meinhof had freed Baader from prison. The German media was looking for a suitable name for the group and this seemed to fit perfectly. Naturally the group never used the term to describe themselves as they called themselves the Red Army Faction. Liberals would never call them a "Gang" (Bande), but were instead careful to refer to them as a "Group" (Gruppe). Conservative Germans were equally careful to do the exact opposite. But neither group referred to them by their actual name.

Known terrorist groups during the Crisis Years:

The Baader-Meinhof Gang
The Red Army Fraction
Socialist Patients' Collective
Movement 2 June
Revolutionary Cells
Tupamaros West Berlin

 

The Beginning

A wave of street protests took place in West Berlin in the late 1960’s, fueled by student anxiety that ranged from the war in Vietnam to university policies. Many of the leftist students would follow Rudi Dutschke’s call to “march through the institutions” and would end up major players in the Green Party years later. The more radically minded ones who didn’t have the patience for the "long march" justified terrorist actions as a way to kick-start a revolution. (Rudi Dutschke: most prominent spokesperson of the student protests of the 1960s, helped the Green Party reach the 5% minimum to enter parliament.)

On June 2, 1967 the police were attempting to control a rowdy crowd that was already dispersing, when a policeman grabbed what was thought to be the ringleader and pointed a gun at him. Weather or not the policeman meant to shoot the student will never be known but Benno Ohnesorg died that day on the street. It was the first protest he had attended and he immediately became a martyr for the student movement ("Studentenbewegung").

Baader and Meinhof

On the April 2, 1968 Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin left bombs in the Schneider department store. The result was $200,000 in damage. A few days later they were arrested by police.

In 1969 an attempt to bomb Nixon’s motorcade was made and failed. The convicted arsonists Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader were given temporary amnesty but failed to return to jail when the amnesty ended. They fled to Paris were they lived the high life with then journalist Regis Debray. In 1968 a series of student protests promised hope but soon faded into riots. (Regis Debray: French intellectual, journalist, government official, professor. Friend of Che Guevara, in politics he increased France's freedom of action in the world, decrease dependence on the United States, Founder of the "discipline" of médiologie - to scientifically study mass media and power.)

At first these radicals experienced a period of success. People were excited and curious of what would happen. But support dwindled when West German terrorists stopped just robbing banks and began to kill people.

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