RAF Bombs Weiterstadt Prison (1993)

Sat Mar 27, 1993

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On this day in 1993, the Red Army Faction (RAF) bombed and destroyed the newly finished Weiterstadt Prison near Frankfurt, Germany, causing approximately $90 million in damages.

The Weiterstadt prison had taken eight years to build and was not housing inmates yet - they were scheduled to begin holding inmates that May. The act of rebellion began when at least three armed people climbed a high well and entered the guardhouse early in the morning of March 27th, 1993.

The group subdued ten prison guards and locked them in a van near a landfill. After that, the RAF members brought in more than 200 kilograms of explosives, detonating them at 5:12 am. The prison had to be rebuilt, which took another four years, opening and receiving inmates in May 1997.

The bombing was the last major action of the RAF before they dissolved in 1998. In 2007, fourteen years later, detectives identified three perpetrators using DNA analysis, however all three suspects are still at large. In May 2020, all three suspects were on the Europe Union’s “Most Wanted” list.

  • MiguelJavier@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 days ago

    I admit that this is one of the less stupid things the RAF did. Overall, the RAF only caused damage and had nothing to do with progressive politics to improve the situation of the workers. They were violence fetishists and thought that through their terror the proletariat in Germany would realize that the parliamentary republic in Germany was in fact a fascist regime - which was of course complete nonsense. And they terrorized not only the political elite in Germany, but also themselves. The internal discussions, especially among the founding generation (Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Raspe) are horrific testaments to power fantasies and punishment rituals. The RAF was a reactionary sect that stood in complete contradiction to a working-class politics oriented towards Karl Marx.