"Selbstmord oder Staatsmord?"
This was a clever
slogan uttered by young German students in
1977 after members of the
Baader-Meinhof group (or the
Red Army Faction (
RAF), as they called themselves) died of
gunshot wounds while in prison. As the most wanted criminals in the
Federal Republic of Germany, Baader-Meinhof had committed dozens of serious offenses from bank robbery to kidnapping to murder. By and large, the
first incarnation of the RAF was a
prime target of German and U.S. anti-communists. This
Palestinian-trained band of
guerrillas gained a bit of popularity among the
far left, and the
CIA certainly wanted to crush pro-communist sentiment this close to the
Border. These undeniable facts led young
anti-establishment Germans to question whether the brave
Red soldiers had really
shot themselves with
smuggled handguns in the most secure
prison block in
West Germany--and what about the sand from the
Mogadishu deserts in
Andreas Baader's shoes?