Revolutionary Cells | |
---|---|
Participant in Operation Entebbe | |
Active | 1973–1993 |
Ideology |
Anti-Imperialism Anti-Racism Anti-Zionism Feminism |
Area of operations | Germany |
Allies | Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine |
Opponents |
West Germany (1973–1990) Federal Republic of Germany (1990–1993) |
Battles and wars | Numerous bombings and one hijacking |
The Revolutionary Cells (German: Revolutionäre Zellen, abbreviated RZ) were a self-described "urban guerilla" organisation, that was active between 1973 and 1995, and was described in the early 1980s as one of Germany's most dangerous leftist terrorist groups by the West German Interior Ministry. According to the office of the German Federal Prosecutor, the Revolutionary Cells claimed responsibility for 186 attacks, of which 40 were committed in West Berlin.
The Revolutionary Cells is perhaps most famous internationally for hijacking an Air France flight in cooperation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – External Operations and diverting it to Uganda's Entebbe Airport, where they were granted temporary asylum until their deaths during Operation Entebbe, a hostage rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976.
Formed in the early 1970s from networks of independent militant groups in Germany, such as the Autonomen movement and the feminist Rote Zora, the Revolutionary Cells became known to the general public in the wake of the hijacking of an Air France airliner to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976.
The Air France hijacking ended with Operation Entebbe, the Israeli rescue raid and the death of two of Revolutionary Cells' founding members, Wilfried Böse, called Boni, and Brigitte Kuhlmann. Böse's friend Johannes Weinrich, another Revolutionary Cells founder, left the group to work for Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – better known as Carlos the Jackal – together with his girlfriend Magdalena Kopp, later Carlos' wife.