German Autumn — 1977 season of politically-motivated terrorist crimes in Germany which lead to the formation of cross-party crisis committees by chancellor Helmut Schmidt; widely regarded as the most serious crisis in post-WWII Germany
The German Autumn of 1977 represented the peak crisis of far-left terrorism in West Germany, testing the state's democratic resilience against RAF attacks.
Key Facts
- Period
- September–October 1977
- Perpetrator group
- Red Army Faction (RAF)
- Key incident: kidnapping
- Hanns Martin Schleyer, industrialist and former SS officer
- Key incident: hijacking
- Lufthansa Flight 181
- RAF leadership outcome
- Imprisoned first-generation leaders died by suicide
- Named after
- 1978 film 'Deutschland im Herbst'
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Red Army Faction, a far-left militant group active in West Germany since the early 1970s, escalated its campaign of political violence in 1977 under the banner of 'Offensive 77,' targeting symbols of West German capitalism and the state in an effort to free imprisoned RAF leaders.
During September and October 1977, the RAF carried out a series of coordinated attacks: the kidnapping and subsequent murder of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer, the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181, and ultimately the deaths by suicide of the RAF's imprisoned first-generation leadership, including Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, in Stammheim Prison.
The crisis prompted Chancellor Helmut Schmidt to form cross-party emergency committees and strengthened West German counter-terrorism capabilities. The events were widely judged the gravest internal crisis in the Federal Republic's history, and the term 'German Autumn' entered political vocabulary, memorialized by the 1978 documentary film 'Deutschland im Herbst.'