Rote Armee Fraktion

Red Army Faction
Participant in the German Autumn
Later design of the RAF's insignia showing a red star and a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun
Active	1970–1998
Ideology	Marxism–Leninism, Maoism, Third-Worldism, Anti-imperialism, Anti-fascism
Area of operations	West Germany
Battles and wars	West German Embassy siege, German Autumn

The Red Army Faction or Red Army Fraction (RAF; German: Rote Armee Fraktion), in its early stages commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Group or Baader-Meinhof Gang (German: Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe, Baader-Meinhof-Bande), was a West German far-left terrorist group supported by the Stasi. The RAF was founded in 1970 by Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. The West German government considered the Red Army Faction to be a terrorist organization.

The Red Army Faction engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies, and shoot-outs with police over the course of three decades. Their activity peaked in late 1977, which led to a national crisis that became known as the "German Autumn." The RAF has been held responsible for thirty-four deaths, including many secondary targets, such as chauffeurs and bodyguards, as well as many injuries throughout its almost thirty years of activity. Although better-known, the RAF conducted fewer attacks than the Revolutionary Cells (Revolutionäre Zellen, RZ), which is held responsible for 296 bomb attacks, arson and other attacks between 1973 and 1995.

Although Ulrike Meinhof was not considered to be a leader of the RAF at any time, her involvement in Baader's escape from jail in 1970 and her well-known status as a German journalist and intellectual led to her name becoming closely associated to it in the public discourse.
There were three successive incarnations of the organization:

On 20 April 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the submachine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved. However, in January 2016, German police identified three RAF members as being the perpetrators of an assault on an armored truck transporting €1 million, thus fueling suspicion that RAF might be active again.