The anticipation of a conclusion hangs in the air in Markgrafendamm, an unkempt road in Berlin, located just south of Ostkreuz train depot. The road is lined on one side with rundown railway structures, some of which now serve as underground clubs. These edifices compete for attention with clear signals of gentrification. Advertisements for Ugg boots tower above and, in front of a vacant lot, a hoarding promotes a futuristic new apartment complex named “Alaska”. The ad implores passersby with a candid slogan, to “think inside the box”.
If city funds and development don’t erase this remaining sliver of Berlin’s alternative leftist culture, the impending construction of a motorway surely will. That same peaceful street was rattled awake at 7am on Sunday when special forces officers, fully geared, descended onto a motley commune made up of shacks and trailers, shielded by a spray-painted wall.
Hours later, a crowd of onlookers remain silent behind the rippling police tape, watching along with armed law enforcement as a colossal civil defence truck inches its way onto the site. A man, seemingly in his late 20s sporting a moustache, pays close attention while rolling his cigarette by feel. He announces: “They’re after Burkhard and Ernst-Volker”.
He’s referring to Burkhard Garweg and Volker Staub, absconding members of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a radical left-wing terror group who still feature on Germany’s most wanted list. Feigning innocent curiosity, I enquire about the RAF.
“They were an extremist left-wing group,” the man elaborates. “They perceived West Germany as a perpetuation of the Nazi rule, or at the very least believed it was susceptible to revert back to fascist tendencies owing to the number of ex-Nazis in authority.”
Emerging as a radical offshoot of the 1968 student revolution movement in West Germany, RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang after its founders, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, were self-proclaimed urban guerrilla fighters with Marxist-Leninist aims. They adeptly equipped themselves with weapons and explosives and, with backing from socialist East Berlin and Moscow, had ambitions to topple the capitalist structure from the inside.
In 1972, Baader and his associates were apprehended and put on trial. This led to the rise of a ‘second generation’ RAF who were determined to free the arrested members and initiated the notorious ‘German Autumn’ spree in 1977.
By the October of a notable year, noteworthy founding members of the RAF, Baader and Meinhof, had all ended their own lives while incarcerated. The circumstances surrounding their deaths still remain debated. The RAF’s violent/revolutionary activities proceeded in their absence, with members being associated with the demise of 34 individuals in various fields such as industry, finance, public prosecutions, and US military personnel based in Germany.
A supposed third generation RAF took over the violent battle as the Cold War’s culmination took a toll on their key support and financial resources. In 1998, Reuters obtained a faxed eight-page communique reportedly from the RAF, declaring the end of their armed battle and stating it was now a part of history.
While senior members from the second generation were granted early release ten years ago, three members of the third-generation RAF remained at large. This changed a week prior when a block of flats in Kreuzberg, Berlin was raided by the special forces who captured the 65-year-old Daniela Klette.
Recent advancements in AI-based face recognition software seem to have brought more significant leads than after three decades of police investigation. Klette had been living as “Claudia” for the past three decades and from her social media profile, she appeared to be interested in the Brazilian combat dance, Capoeira.
When her rented apartment was raided, police discovered a significant amount of cash, a rocket-launcher, grenades, as well as a submachine gun and ammunition. Prosecutors claim that the accused woman in custody has refrained from commenting, except denying that she is Daniela Klette. She now confronts charges relating to a 1993 bomb attack on prison construction and a series of RAF led raids on cash transportation vehicles and supermarkets – presumably to fund their underground life.
Police raids on Sunday at the Markgrafendamm did not result in the capture of more RAF suspects, however, authorities claimed a caravan, supposedly the house of Garweg, was removed. As dusk fell, overheard discussions suggested a palpable feeling of nostalgia. It became evident that local terrorists seemed more acceptable than present-day radical Islamist arrivals, given a temporal distance of four decades.
During the past weekend in what used to be West Berlin, an area previously known for its left-wing extremism, a dumped mattress found by the canal was given a new life. It was used to display a spray-painted message of encouragement in bold letters, which read: “Stay strong, Daniela. All the best, Burkhard and Volker!”