Editing Red Army Faction (section)

== Criminal acts ==
The RAF has been associated with various serious criminal acts (including bombings, kidnappings and murder) since their founding. The first criminal act attributed to the group after the student [[Benno Ohnesorg]] had been killed by a policeman in 1967 was the bombing of the Kaufhaus Schneider department store. On 2 April 1968, affiliates of the group firebombed the store and caused an estimated US$200,000 in property damage.{{citation needed|date=October 2021|reason=date and the cost of the property damage as that would depend on the date of the comparison.}} Prominent members of the bombing included [[Andreas Baader]] and [[Gudrun Ensslin]], two of the founders of the RAF. The bombs detonated at midnight when no one was in the store and no one was injured. As the bombs ignited, Gudrun Ensslin was at a nearby payphone, yelling to the [[German Press Agency]], "This is a political act of revenge."{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

On 11 May 1972, the RAF placed three pipe bombs at a United States headquarters in [[Frankfurt]]. The bombing resulted in the death of a US officer and the injury of 13 other people. The stated reason for the bombing was a political statement in protest of US imperialism, specifically, a protest of US mining of North Vietnam harbours.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women, Gender, and Terrorism|publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]]|year=2011|isbn=978-0820335834|editor-last=Gentry|editor-first=Caron E.|pages=61|editor-last2=Sjoberg|editor-first2=Laura}}</ref>

On 19 May 1972, members of the RAF armed five bombs in the [[Axel Springer SE|Springer publishing house]] in Hamburg. Only three of the five bombs exploded, but 36 people were injured.<ref>{{cite news|last=Bahnsen|first=Uwe|title=Der Tag, an dem die RAF Axel Springer angriff|url=https://www.welt.de/regionales/hamburg/article106330282/Der-Tag-an-dem-die-RAF-Axel-Springer-angriff.html|language=de|date=17 May 2012|newspaper=Die Welt|access-date=2 May 2019|archive-date=1 December 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161201120829/https://www.welt.de/regionales/hamburg/article106330282/Der-Tag-an-dem-die-RAF-Axel-Springer-angriff.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

On 24 May 1972, two weeks after the bombing of the United States headquarters in Frankfurt, the group set off a car bomb at the IDHS (Intelligence Data Handling Service) Building at [[Campbell Barracks]] in [[Heidelberg]]. The bombing resulted in the deaths of three soldiers and the injury of five others.<ref>{{cite news |title=Blasts at U.S. Base in Germany Kill 3 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/05/25/archives/blasts-at-us-base-in-germany-kill-3.html |work=The New York Times |issue=41760 |volume=121|date=25 May 1972}}</ref>

On 10 November 1974, the group killed [[Günter von Drenkmann]], the president of Germany's superior court of justice. The killing occurred after a string of events that led to a failed kidnapping by the 2 June Movement, a group that splintered off the RAF after the death of [[Holger Meins]] by hunger strike in prison.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-10-03 |title=Günter von Drenkmann: Das erste Opfer des Linksterrorismus - WELT |url=https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article10918644/Das-erste-Opfer-des-Linksterrorismus.html |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=DIE WELT |language=de}}</ref>

Starting in February 1975 and continuing through March 1975, the 2 June Movement kidnapped [[Peter Lorenz]], who at the time was the [[Christian Democratic Union of Germany|Christian Democratic]] candidate in the race for the mayor of West Berlin. In exchange for the release of Lorenz, the group demanded that several RAF and 2 June Movement members that were imprisoned for reasons other than violence be released from jail. The government obliged and released several of these members for the safe release of Lorenz.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bewegung 2. Juni/Movement 2 June {{!}} Mapping Militant Organizations |url=https://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/351 |access-date=2023-06-25 |website=web.stanford.edu}}</ref>

On 24 April 1975, six members affiliated with the RAF seized the West German Embassy in Stockholm. The group took hostages and set the building to explode. They demanded the release of several imprisoned members of the RAF. The government refused the request, which led to the murder of two of the hostages. A few of the bombs that were intended to blow up the embassy prematurely detonated, which resulted in the death of two of the six RAF affiliates. The other four members eventually surrendered to the authorities.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

In May 1975, several British intelligence reports circulated that stated that the RAF had stolen [[mustard gas]] from a joint U.S. and British storage facility. The reports also indicated that the RAF had intended to use the stolen gas in German cities. It eventually turned out that the mustard gas canisters were merely misplaced; however, the RAF still successfully capitalized on the news by frightening several different agencies.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Toxic terror: assessing terrorist use of chemical and biological weapons|date=2000|publisher=MIT Press|last=Tucker|first= Jonathan B.|isbn=978-0262201285|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|oclc=42421029}}{{Page needed|date=December 2017}}</ref>

In the 1970's, the RAF was involved in several raids, taking advantage of [[Switzerland]]'s loosely guarded military armories. According to the source, the group was involved in the theft of 200 Swiss rifles, 500 revolvers, and 400 large grenades.<ref>Hamm, Mark S (September 2005). [https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/211203.pdf "Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups: Theory, Research and Prevention"] ''U.S. Department of Justice''. Retrieved 14 September 2022.</ref>

During the early 1980s, German and French newspapers reported that the police had raided an RAF safe house in Paris and had found a makeshift laboratory that contained flasks full of ''[[Clostridium botulinum]]'', which makes [[botulinum toxin]]. These reports were later found to be incorrect; no such lab was ever found.<ref>{{cite book|last1=McAdams|first1=David|last2=Kornblet|first2=Sarah|editor1-last=Pilch|editor1-first=Richard F.|editor2-last=Zilinskas|editor2-first=Raymond A.|title=Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense|date=2011|publisher=Wiley-Liss|isbn=978-0471686781|chapter=Baader-Meinhof Group (OR Baader-Meinhof Gang|doi=10.1002/0471686786.ebd0012.pub2}}</ref>