The 65-year-old was a member of the left-wing extremist terrorist group Red Army Faction and was then allegedly involved in numerous robberies.
The RAF’s last attack was in 1993 against the then almost completed prison in Weiterstadt, southern Hesse. Daniela Klette is said to have been involved.
Frank Kleefeldt / DPA
With the arrest of the ex-RAF terrorist Daniela Klette, the German authorities achieved a spectacular manhunt success on Monday. As it became known on Tuesday, the woman, who had been in hiding for more than thirty years, was arrested without resistance in an apartment building in Berlin-Kreuzberg the evening before.
How long Klette stayed in the Berlin apartment is unclear, according to the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Verden on Tuesday. According to police, ammunition, but no weapon, was discovered in the apartment. The 65-year-old, who assumed a false identity, is said to have been convicted using her fingerprints. She is now in custody.
Klette was a member of the so-called third generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF). The left-wing extremist terrorist group shook the Federal Republic until the 1990s with attacks on politicians and business leaders. In 1991 the RAF was responsible for the murder of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder.
The RAF terrorist Daniela Klette in an undated photo.
Str/EPA DPA
As head of the Treuhand-Anstalt, Rohwedder was responsible for the privatization of the GDR economy and was thus targeted by the terrorists. He was shot in his private home in Düsseldorf. A debate then broke out about the inadequate protection of the highly vulnerable man. At times it was also suspected that former Stasi members might have shot Rohwedder. Rohwedder’s murder is considered the RAF’s last act of bloodshed. This declared its dissolution in 1998.
According to this, Klette and the two former RAF terrorists Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg are said to have committed a series of armed robberies together between 1999 and 2016. There is also said to have been an attempted murder during the robbery of a cash-in-transit truck.
However, the authorities have ruled out a political motive for the violent acts. The alleged perpetrators are said to have been more interested in getting money to support themselves. According to the public prosecutor’s office, it is unclear where Klette has been during the past thirty years. That’s why we don’t know who supported her during that time.
The RAF rejected the Federal Republic
The current arrest was preceded by another call on the ZDF program “Aktenzeichen XY. . . unresolved” in February. In it, the investigators asked for help in catching Klette and her accomplices. According to the Verden public prosecutor’s office, over 250 tips were received. According to the police, they were not the deciding factor. The decisive information was received in November 2023.
The RAF was founded in 1970 as an urban guerrilla against a supposedly fascist state and became increasingly radicalized. While the founding generation around Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof were soon arrested and imprisoned in Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, the second generation tried to free them. An unprecedented series of attacks shook the Federal Republic to its core in the 1970s. The violence directed against the state and business reached its peak during the so-called German Autumn of 1977.
The RAF’s last attack took place in 1993
At that time, the RAF kidnapped the German employer president Hanns-Martin Schleyer. The then Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt did not want to give in to the blackmail attempt and refused to exchange the terrorists imprisoned in Stammheim for Schleyer. Shortly afterwards, Palestinian terrorists hijacked the German Lufthansa plane “Landshut” in support. After an odyssey, a special commando from Germany freed the passengers in Mogadiscio in Somalia. The founding generation in Stammheim then committed collective suicide. In response, the RAF murdered the kidnapped employer boss Schleyer.
In the early 1980s, the RAF changed its strategy and cooperated with other European left-wing terrorist organizations. The collapse of communism after 1989 severely shook the organization. Ultimately, the RAF was repeatedly supported by the GDR. The RAF carried out the last attack in 1993. The Weiterstadt prison in Hesse, which was under construction, was severely damaged. Burdock is said to have been involved. In total, the RAF is held responsible for 33 murders and over 200 injuries.
An armored police vehicle leaves the Verden district court yard together with other cars. The public prosecutor’s office there announced Klette’s arrest on Tuesday.
Sina Schuldt / DPA