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Nine of the ten murders committed by the third generation of the RAF remain unsolved. Something could be possible, says RAF expert Butz Peters.
The arrest of alleged ex-RAF terrorist Daniela Klette in Berlin this week has caused waves. She is one of the last three members of the third RAF generation still wanted, who are said to have murdered a total of ten people.
Third RAF generation as a darkroom
Only one of these murders has been solved so far, says lawyer Butz Peters, who has already written several books about the left-wing extremist Red Army Faction RAF. The murder of the head of Deutsche Bank Alfred Herrhausen (1989) is one of the unsolved cases, as is that of the trust boss Detlev Karsten Rohwedder in 1991.
To this day, the police do not know where the third generation RAF lived, how they financed themselves and where all the explosives came from.
“The third RAF generation learned from the actions of the previous two generations, including from a forensic point of view,” says Peters, explaining the fact that the investigators hardly know anything in these cases. There are no fingerprints from the third RAF generation and not a single conspiratory apartment is known, while dozens of such apartments were discovered among the first generation Baader-Meinhof group in the 1970s.
Burdock – back to normal life unrecognized
According to Peters, the third generation was also characterized by the fact that, in contrast to the previous two generations, it was limited to a very small number of members. No one has yet unpacked, the financing of the terrorist cell is unclear, as is the origin of the more than 200 kilograms of explosives used.
Legend:
When former RAF member Daniela Klette was arrested in Berlin on February 27, numerous materials were seized. The 65-year-old, who was in hiding for 30 years, is suspected of armed robbery and attempted murder.
Keystone/EPA/Clemens Bilan
The cautious approach may have contributed significantly to Daniela Klette being able to remain undetected under a different identity for another three decades after eight years of underground activity for the RAF. As Claudia Ivone with Italian papers. A normal woman who was well established in the neighborhood in Berlin-Kreuzberg, gave math lessons, went dancing and even set up a Facebook account over ten years ago – although posters of her as a twenty-year-old were hanging at train stations all over Germany.
Will Burdock unpack?
Peter estimates that Klette will now have to decide whether, what and how much she wants to reveal as part of the leniency program in order to reduce her sentence. It is possible that she remains as steadfastly silent as the other two arrested women of the third RAF generation, Eva Haule and Birgit Hogefeld.
Klette may also provide information such as the eight second-generation RAF dropouts captured in the GDR, about whom there were over 2,000 pages of informative interrogation protocols.
Hoping for lots of clues
According to the police, the search for RAF members and accomplices continues. It’s primarily about Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Wilhelm Staub, the last two former RAF members who are still at large. It is not yet known whether the person arrested on the same day as Klette was one of the two men.
Legend:
Burkhard Garweg, Ernst-Volker Wilhelm Staub and Daniela Klette (from left) are counted as part of the third generation of the RAF.
Keystone/BKA
Peters estimates that the chances of Garweg and Staub being caught are higher these days than ever before. The photos are constantly shown in the media and the attention value is huge: “It’s quite conceivable that they will still be recognized because a neighbor comes to the conclusion that it could be one of the people they’re looking for.” A number of clues can definitely be expected in the next few days.