ABSTRACT
Before the development of a central counterterrorism strategy in 1975, the first wave of West German terrorist violence had already passed. Although the first generation of the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction, RAF ) had been active between 1970 and 1972, and the September 1972 Munich hostage drama had put terrorism high on the national agenda, it was not until after the abduction of Berlin CDU chairman Peter Lorenz by the left-wing terrorist group Bewegung 2. Juni (Movement 2nd June) between February to March 1975 that a national counterterrorism strategy was constructed. 1 Until then, combating militant groups, through actions led by local police and the regional Landeskriminalämter (LKAs, Regional Criminal Offices, organized by German Land) concentrated on cities like Main, Munich and (West) Berlin. Their prime targets were the left-revolutionary terrorist movements: principally the RAF, but, in addition, cognate groups such as the Movement 2nd June and, to a lesser degree, a number of Palestine commandos who were active throughout Western Europe in the 1970s. In 1969, a year before the RAF proper was founded with the May 1970 liberation of Andreas Baader (who was in custody for an April 1968 arson attack on a Frankfurt department store) other politically violent groups were already active. Groups such as the Zentralrat der umherschweifenden Hasch-Rebellen, the Tupamaros Westberlin or the Blues (out of which the 1972 terrorist Movement 2nd June grew) were part of the West Berlin drug scene and had established their reputation through street battles with the police. In Munich, the Tupamaros München caused a degree of havoc; they were a group with much less of a proletarian background than their West Berlin comrades, but who were equally violent. 2 In Hamburg, the early squatter scene also played a part in radicalizing activists who were to participate in terrorist actions after 1972. 3
