Verdict in the Stammheim Trial: Baader–Meinhof Leaders Convicted (1977)
On April 28, 1977, a West German court in Stuttgart-Stammheim delivered its verdict in the marathon trial of the Red Army Faction's founding leadership, convicting Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe of four counts of murder and more than thirty counts of attempted murder. The trial capped years of bombings, kidnappings, and shootings by the far-left militant group and became a defining episode in West Germany's confrontation with domestic terrorism during the 1970s.
Origins of the Red Army Faction
The Red Army Faction, popularly known as the Baader–Meinhof Group, emerged in West Germany in 1970 out of the radical fringes of the country's student movement. Its founders included Andreas Baader, journalist Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and lawyer Horst Mahler, who together styled the organization as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla force. The group viewed the West German state as a continuation of fascism, pointing to former Nazi officials still holding positions in postwar government and business, and argued that armed resistance was justified against what it called an oppressive capitalist order allied with American imperialism, particularly over the Vietnam War. Baader's dramatic 1970 prison break, aided by Meinhof, is often cited as the RAF's founding act. From there the group moved underground, training in Jordan with Palestinian militants before launching a campaign of bombings targeting U.S. military installations, banks, and West German institutions such as newspaper offices and judicial buildings. Bank robberies funded the group's operations, while bombings in 1972 killed four American soldiers and a German judge, among others. By mid-1972 the founding leadership, including Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Holger Meins, had been captured and imprisoned, though the RAF continued under successive generations of members for decades afterward, carrying out further attacks into the late 1970s and beyond.
Did You Know?
The Stammheim courthouse was purpose-built for the trial at a cost of roughly 12 million deutsche marks, featuring reinforced walls, bulletproof glass, and its own helicopter landing pad, out of fear that RAF commandos might attempt a violent rescue of the defendants.
The Stammheim Trial
The trial of Baader, Ensslin, Raspe, and initially Ulrike Meinhof began in May 1975 at a specially constructed high-security courthouse adjacent to Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart, built specifically to house the proceedings amid fears of RAF attempts to free the defendants. Meinhof did not live to see the verdict; she was found hanged in her cell in May 1976, a death officially ruled a suicide but one that RAF supporters and sympathizers long disputed, alleging state involvement. The remaining defendants used the courtroom as a stage for political theater, denouncing the proceedings as an extension of state repression and periodically disrupting sessions. Prosecutors presented evidence tying the defendants to a string of 1972 bombings and shootings that killed four people, including two U.S. servicemen at a Heidelberg army base and a judge, along with dozens of injuries. The defense argued the charges were part of a broader campaign to criminalize political dissent, while the defendants themselves frequently refused to cooperate with what they considered an illegitimate legal process. After nearly two years of hearings—one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in West German history to that point—the court reached its verdict on April 28, 1977.
Verdict and Aftermath
The Stuttgart court convicted Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe on four counts of murder and more than thirty counts of attempted murder, sentencing each to life imprisonment. The verdict did not end the RAF's campaign of violence but instead intensified it. That autumn, during what became known as the "German Autumn," RAF members and sympathizers kidnapped and murdered employer association president Hanns Martin Schleyer and hijacked a Lufthansa airliner in a failed bid to secure the Stammheim prisoners' release. When the hijacking was foiled by a German commando raid in Mogadishu in October 1977, Baader, Ensslin, and fellow prisoner Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their cells the following morning in what authorities ruled a coordinated suicide, though conspiracy theories about state killings persisted for decades. The RAF itself did not disband after these losses; a second and later a third generation of militants carried out further assassinations and bombings against West German business and political figures throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. The group formally announced its dissolution in a communique in April 1998, bringing to a close nearly three decades of violence that had killed 34 people and left an enduring mark on German political memory and debates over terrorism, state power, and civil liberties.