How did the escalation of left-wing terrorism by the Red Army Faction (RAF) during the “German Autumn” of 1977 compel the West German state to redefine the balance between civil liberties and internal security, and to what extent did this crisis represent the final maturation of the Federal Republic’s post-war democracy?

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the “German Autumn” (Deutscher Herbst) of 1977, the peak of the conflict between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Red Army Faction (RAF). It traces the ideological evolution of the RAF from the student protests of 1968 to the militant underground, characterizing their campaign as a misguided attempt to expose the “fascist core” of the West German state. The narrative centers on the “Offensive 77,” culminating in the abduction of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer and the concurrent hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181. The article scrutinizes the “hard line” strategy of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the legal controversies surrounding the “contact ban” and the crisis management apparatus, and the international dimension involving Palestinian militants. Ultimately, it argues that the state’s refusal to capitulate, while tragic for the victims, legitimized the Federal Republic’s monopoly on force and proved that a liberal democracy could defend itself against extremism without relapsing into authoritarianism.

Introduction

In the autumn of 1977, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) faced the gravest existential crisis of its short history. It was not a crisis of economics, nor a threat from the Soviet divisions stationed across the Iron Curtain. It was a crisis of internal legitimacy, sparked by a small cadre of young, educated, middle-class radicals who had declared war on the state.

For 44 days in September and October, the nation held its breath. The “German Autumn” was defined by a brutal sequence of assassinations, kidnappings, and hijackings orchestrated by the Red Army Faction (RAF), often referred to by the press as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Their goal was to blackmail the government into releasing their imprisoned leaders, whom they viewed as political prisoners of a fascist regime.

This period was more than a series of crimes; it was a psychodrama played out on the national stage. It forced West Germans to confront the ghosts of their past. The terrorists claimed to be fighting the “new fascism” of the Bonn Republic, yet they employed the ruthless violence of the totalitarianism they claimed to despise. The state, led by Social Democratic Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, had to decide how far a democracy could go in suspending rights to protect itself.

This article reconstructs the anatomy of this crisis. It examines the genesis of the RAF’s “second generation,” the selection of Hanns Martin Schleyer as the ultimate symbolic target, the agonizing moral calculus of the government’s “Crisis Staff,” and the dramatic resolution in the desert of Mogadishu and the cells of Stammheim. It posits that the German Autumn was the crucible in which the “militant democracy” (streitbare Demokratie) of West Germany was forged.

The Road to Autumn: From Protest to Terror

To understand the violence of 1977, one must trace the trajectory of the German Left. The RAF emerged from the disintegrating student movement of the late 1960s. While the majority of the “68ers” chose the “long march through the institutions”—joining the Social Democrats (SPD) or the Green movement to effect reform—a radical fringe concluded that the state was irredeemable.

Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Ulrike Meinhof founded the RAF in 1970. Their ideology was a crude mix of Marxism-Leninism and anti-imperialism. They viewed West Germany as a colony of American imperialism (referencing the Vietnam War) and a continuation of the Third Reich (referencing the presence of former Nazis in high office). Their strategy was “urban guerilla warfare.” By attacking the symbols of the state—police stations, US army bases, judges—they hoped to provoke a repressive backlash. They believed that if they could force the state to drop its “democratic mask” and show its true “police state” face, the proletariat would rise up in solidarity.

By 1972, the “first generation” of the RAF leadership had been captured and imprisoned in a specially constructed high-security court and prison complex in Stuttgart-Stammheim. However, their imprisonment did not end the terror; it fueled it. From their cells, utilizing a secret communication system and compliant lawyers (the “courier system”), Baader and Ensslin directed the formation of a “second generation.”

The sole purpose of this second generation—led by figures like Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar—was to free the first. This culminated in the “Offensive 77.” It began in April with the assassination of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and continued in July with the murder of Jürgen Ponto, the head of Dresdner Bank, who was shot in his own home by his goddaughter’s friends. These murders set the stage for the “Big Raushole” (The Big Breakout).

The Target: The Symbolism of Hanns Martin Schleyer

On September 5, 1977, the RAF struck in Cologne. The target was carefully chosen: Hanns Martin Schleyer. As the President of both the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Schleyer was the “boss of the bosses.” He represented the capitalist system the RAF hated.

But Schleyer carried a darker symbolism. During the Third Reich, he had been an SS-Untersturmführer and a member of the Nazi student league in Prague. He had never publicly apologized for his past. For the RAF, Schleyer was the living embodiment of the continuity between Nazism and the Federal Republic. Kidnapping him was not just a tactical move; it was an act of “anti-fascist resistance.”

The ambush was ruthless. As Schleyer’s convoy turned a corner, the terrorists blocked the road with a pram. When the driver braked, they opened fire with automatic weapons. Within seconds, Schleyer’s driver and three police bodyguards lay dead. Schleyer was dragged from his car and spirited away to a “people’s prison”—first a high-rise apartment in Erftstadt, later a hideout in the Netherlands.

The demand arrived the next day: the release of 11 RAF prisoners, including Baader, Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, plus $15 million in ransom.

The State’s Response: No Surrender

The kidnapping presented Chancellor Helmut Schmidt with an agonizing dilemma. Two years earlier, in 1975, the RAF-affiliated “2nd of June Movement” had kidnapped conservative politician Peter Lorenz. The government had capitulated, releasing five terrorists who were flown to South Yemen. Most of them immediately returned to the underground to kill again.

Schmidt, a pragmatic and tough-minded Social Democrat, decided that this could not happen again. He formulated a new doctrine: the state cannot be blackmailed. If the state capitulated to terror, it abdicated its primary responsibility to protect the citizenry. It would encourage endless copycat crimes.

This decision essentially sacrificed Schleyer to save the principle of the state. Schmidt later admitted that this weighed heavily on his conscience, acknowledging that he was taking “guilt” upon himself. To manage the situation, Schmidt formed the Großer Krisenstab (Large Crisis Staff), a bipartisan committee including opposition leaders like Helmut Kohl (CDU) and Franz Josef Strauss (CSU). This was a shrewd political maneuver; by involving the opposition in every decision, Schmidt ensured they could not attack him publicly for the outcome.

The strategy was two-pronged: massive police pressure and stalling tactics. The police launched the largest manhunt in German history. Thousands of officers set up checkpoints; apartments were raided; the Autobahn network was paralyzed. Simultaneously, the government opened a channel of communication with the kidnappers via a Swiss lawyer, Denis Payot, feigning willingness to negotiate to buy time for the police to find Schleyer.

The Contact Ban and the Erosion of Rights

As the crisis dragged on, the government took a legally controversial step. Suspecting (correctly) that the prisoners in Stammheim were communicating with the kidnappers and directing their moves, the Justice Minister enacted a “contact ban” (Kontaktsperre).

This law totally isolated the RAF prisoners. They were forbidden from seeing their lawyers, receiving mail, or interacting with each other. This was a suspension of fundamental civil liberties. Critics on the left argued that the state was creating a “legal vacuum” and violating the rule of law. The prisoners’ lawyers (some of whom were sympathetic to the cause) decried it as “isolation torture.”

The Parliament (Bundestag) rushed to legitimize this measure, passing the Contact Ban Law in record time—a matter of days. This demonstrated the fragility of legal norms in the face of perceived existential threats. While the Constitutional Court later upheld the law, it remains a contentious moment in German legal history, illustrating how quickly a liberal democracy can adopt authoritarian tools under pressure.

Escalation: The Hijacking of the Landshut

By mid-October, the RAF realized the government was stalling. The police pressure was intense, but they had failed to locate Schleyer. The terrorists needed a force multiplier.

They found it in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The RAF had long maintained ties with Palestinian groups, training in their camps in Jordan and Lebanon. The PFLP agreed to hijack a plane to increase the leverage.

On October 13, 1977, four Palestinian terrorists hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181, the “Landshut,” flying from Mallorca to Frankfurt with 86 passengers and 5 crew members on board. The hijackers, led by Zohair Youssif Akache (calling himself “Captain Martyr Mahmud”), demanded the release of the RAF prisoners and two Palestinians held in Turkey, plus a $15 million ransom.

The hijacking transformed a domestic crisis into an international nightmare. The plane became a flying prison, embarking on a chaotic odyssey across the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Countries refused to let it land; fuel ran low. The conditions on board were horrific. The passengers were bound, beaten, and soaked in sweat and filth in the sweltering heat.

The flight eventually landed in Aden, South Yemen. There, the hijackers executed the captain, Jürgen Schumann, who had attempted to pass intelligence to the authorities. He was forced to kneel in the aisle and shot in the head in front of the passengers. The plane took off again, piloted by the co-pilot, heading for Mogadishu, Somalia.

The Showdown in Mogadishu

The arrival in Mogadishu on October 17 set the stage for the finale. The hijackers rigged the cabin with explosives and doused the passengers in duty-free alcohol. They issued a deadline: release the prisoners by the next afternoon, or the plane would be blown up.

Chancellor Schmidt was determined to act. He had already dispatched the GSG 9 (Grenzschutzgruppe 9), a newly created elite counter-terrorism unit of the Federal Border Guard. Formed after the catastrophic failure of the German police during the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, the GSG 9 had never been tested in a live operation abroad.

Schmidt engaged in intense diplomacy with Somali President Siad Barre, securing permission for the German unit to operate on Somali soil. The deadline passed, but the hijackers were told the release was underway to lull them into a false sense of victory.

At 00:05 on October 18, Operation “Fire Magic” (Feuerzauber) began. Under the cover of darkness and using distraction grenades, 30 GSG 9 commandos stormed the plane. “Heads down! Stay down!” they shouted. In a firefight lasting only seven minutes, three hijackers were killed and one was critically wounded. One commando and one flight attendant were slightly injured. All 86 hostages were rescued alive.

The coded message sent to Bonn was succinct: “The job is done.” When the news broke in Germany, the relief was palpable. For the first time since the war, Germans felt a surge of pride in their security forces. The “Landshut” rescue became a foundational myth of the new, competent Germany.

The Night of Death in Stammheim

The success in Mogadishu was the death knell for the prisoners in Stammheim. They had smuggling radios into their cells and were listening to the news. They realized their last card had been played. The state had won; they would not be released.

In the early hours of October 18—the same night as the rescue—the RAF leadership committed collective suicide. Andreas Baader shot himself in the back of the neck with a pistol that had been smuggled into the high-security prison by his lawyer. Jan-Carl Raspe also shot himself. Gudrun Ensslin hanged herself with a speaker cable. Irmgard Möller stabbed herself four times in the chest with a cutlery knife but survived.

When the guards opened the cells in the morning, the chaos was absolute. The state, which had just celebrated a massive victory, was now accused of murdering the prisoners. The RAF sympathizers and the surviving Möller claimed they were executed by secret services.

This conspiracy theory—the “state murder thesis”—spread like wildfire through the European left. It sparked riots and violent protests. However, subsequent investigations, autopsies, and the eventual admissions of RAF insiders confirmed it was a suicide pact. The prisoners had prepared for this outcome, bugging their own cells to record their final hours, hoping to create martyrs for the cause.

The Murder of Schleyer

The suicides sealed Hanns Martin Schleyer’s fate. The kidnappers, enraged by the deaths of their leaders and the failure of the hijacking, decided to execute their hostage.

On October 19, the RAF sent a final communique: “After 43 days, we have ended Hanns Martin Schleyer’s miserable and corrupt existence.” His body was found in the trunk of a green Audi in Mulhouse, France. His throat had been cut and he had been shot in the head.

Schleyer’s family was bitter. They felt the state had sacrificed their husband and father to prove a political point. They had tried to pay the ransom themselves, but the government had prevented it. This highlighted the tragic cost of the “reason of state” (Staatsräson). The state had preserved its authority, but it had failed to protect the individual life.

Conclusion: The Maturation of a Democracy

The German Autumn was the ultimate stress test for the Federal Republic. For 44 days, the state teetered on the edge. Had the government capitulated, the authority of the democratic state might have collapsed, encouraging endless terror. Had the government overreacted with martial law or extrajudicial killings, it would have validated the terrorists’ claim that it was a fascist state.

Helmut Schmidt navigated this narrow path. He stood firm but (mostly) within the bounds of the law. The crisis proved that the Federal Republic was not Weimar. It had the will to defend itself. The concept of “militant democracy”—a democracy that arms itself against its enemies—was vindicated.

However, the victory came at a cost. The atmosphere of 1977 was stifling. Intellectuals who questioned the state’s hard line were branded as “sympathizers” (Sympathisanten). The expansion of police powers and surveillance laid the groundwork for future debates about privacy and data protection.

Ultimately, the German Autumn marked the defeat of the RAF’s ideology. The “masses” did not rise up; they sided with the state. The suicides in Stammheim decapitated the movement. While the RAF continued to murder for another two decades (the “third generation”), they were no longer a political threat, merely a criminal gang. The autumn of 1977 ended the revolutionary dreams of 1968, leaving behind a sobered, scarred, but stable democracy.