ABSTRACT
The challenge posed by David Rapoport's wave model of modern terrorism both in terms of content and methodology, has received insufficient attention from historians to date. Particularly in the case of the Red Army Faction (RAF), alarm over the first appearance of organized anti-systemic violence after the end of Weimar democracy and the state-sponsored terror of National Socialism led to strongly self-referential interpretations. Comparative approaches gained ground only in recent years as discontent with strictly national interpretive models has increased. These approaches have challenged the standard narratives about German terrorists as either "Hitler's children" or belated resistance fighters. When analyzing the West German context it is important first to distinguish between the real influence of authoritarian traditions and personal continuities. For both the radicalization dynamic of terrorist violence and the effectiveness of the state's anti-terrorism performance it is therefore accurate to say: the German Autumn took place on a European stage.
