Berlin, Germany (Weltexpress). On 18 October 2025, the communist magazine ‘Contropiano’ (giornale communista online) published an article (without attribution) by ‘Countermaelstrom’ dealing with the events known as the ‘Night of Death in Stammheim’ on 18 October 1977, during which the imprisoned leaders of the Red Army Faction (RAF), Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe, allegedly died by suicide in their prison cells in Stuttgart Prison. Irmgard Möller survived with serious injuries.
So-called ‘liberal democracies’ have always had a problem reconciling principled statements about ‘Western values’ with actual government practice. Today, this distance seems stark and infinite. It manifests itself in the daily disrespect shown towards the genocides in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, or even the announced attack on Venezuela (should the ‘sovereignty’ of a country perhaps only be respected if it is subordinate to the empire?), and in the minor and major acts of torture to which all prisoners in Italy are subjected, it is said. But even in the recent past, there has been no shortage of evidence of criminal conflict management, especially in those countries that have found it most difficult to emancipate themselves – even verbally – from National Socialism. The night of Stammheim in 1977 remains the darkest moment of shame in Europe.
On 17 October 1977, a commando unit of the German special forces GSG 9 attacked a plane that had been hijacked to demand the release of political prisoners. Three of the four hijackers were killed and the fourth was injured. The hijacking of the Lufthansa Boeing 707 with 86 passengers on board on the Mallorca–Frankfurt route took place on 13 October 1977 by a Palestinian commando unit of the PFLP/SC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – Special Command) to demand the release of a list of political prisoners. This was the same list that the RAF had demanded in exchange for the life of Hans Martin Schleyer, a former SS officer and head of the West German Industry Association, who had been kidnapped by the RAF in Cologne on 5 September 1977.
After Schleyer’s abduction, the government imposed a complete ban on contact between 41 RAF prisoners and outsiders, family members and even lawyers. The next morning (18 October), Andreas Baader, Jan Karl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin were found dead in their high-security cells at Stammheim Prison (Stuttgart). The first two had been shot, the third hanged. Irmgard Moeller was seriously injured by four stab wounds to the chest.
The official version spoke of suicides following the news of the failed plane hijacking, but gave no explanation as to how the perpetrators could have found out about it and how they could have obtained two pistols and a knife in a high-security prison after spending two months in solitary confinement. It was, it is emphasised, state murder. Period. Because, to put it mildly, there are numerous inconsistencies in the official version.
Why did Baader, who was left-handed, hold the pistol in his right hand? How did he manage to shoot himself in the back of the head from a distance of thirty to forty centimetres? Why did the power cable with which Ensslin was supposed to have hanged herself break when they tried to lift her up? In addition, wounds were found that had nothing to do with hanging. It also seems strange that no fingerprints were found on Raspe’s weapon.
Following these events, Schleyer was killed. His body was discovered in the boot of an Audi 100 in Mulhouse, France, after a tip-off. The following month, Ingrid Schubert, another RAF prisoner whose release had been requested, was also found hanged in her cell. The same ‘doubts’ remained, especially since, unlike the three fighters who had recently been sentenced to life imprisonment, she was due to be released in 1982.
Over the next two years, three more RAF members were killed in police operations: Willy Peter Stoll (in Düsseldorf on 6 September 1978), Michael Knoll (24 September 1978 near Dortmund) and Elizabeth Von Dyck (in Nuremberg on 4 May 1979). Rolf Heißler only escaped death because he managed to shield his head with a folder, which deflected the fatal blow.
German society saw massive censorship of all content that showed sympathy for the RAF and liberation movements. Years later, in an interview, Irmgard Moeller responded to a question about a possible scenario of what might have happened that night: “I was and am convinced that this was an operation carried out by the secret services. The BND was able to enter and leave Stammheim unhindered and had (demonstrably) installed surveillance equipment in our prison. It was also known that the prison staff were not considered trustworthy enough for such an operation. Some people constantly told “Bunte”, “Quick” or “Stern” ridiculous stories about us,‘ she said, emphasising that in this context it was important ’that during the contact ban, the staff was replaced, albeit not completely. The cameras in the corridor also did not work at night.” When asked whether she believed that the German government was involved in this murderous action or whether it was merely the work of the secret services themselves, she replied: “I believe the government was involved and that it was even discussed within NATO. At that time, there was also a crisis team in the USA that was in constant contact with Bonn. They had a great interest in us no longer being there. The CIA’s method of making a murder look like suicide is unique.” In the left-wing debate about Stammheim, there was a tendency, at least in the left-wing camp, to dismiss the question of whether it was murder or suicide as unimportant. In any case, however, the deaths of the three can be attributed to the state, which either directly caused them to commit suicide or forced them to do so.
Irmgard Möller described the prison conditions as ‘terrible’; prisoners starved to death during hunger strikes. Holger Meins, for example. But it still makes a big difference whether someone shoots themselves, hangs themselves, stabs themselves in the chest or whether others do it. These are facts. We didn’t want to die, we wanted to live. When asked whether the situation changed for her after these deaths compared to before, she said: “I was suddenly alone. I was seriously injured and barely survived. The circumstances were different than before. On the other hand, Ulrike and Holger were already dead, and many of us knew that the establishment would rather see us dead than alive. The conditions of detention were designed to break us, to prevent us from thinking what we wanted, to make us lose our identity or to kill us.” When asked another question on the same subject, she did not rule out trying to kill herself again. ‘The way I was treated showed that they intended to liquidate me and that I would lose my mind under this constant surveillance, this total control. The best thing for them would have been to drive me mad with this treatment. That would have proven that only crazy people join the RAF and take up armed struggle.’ They didn’t want me to live. This supposed risk of suicide was used as a general power of attorney to forbid me everything.
I was not allowed to eat anything in my cell, I was not allowed to meet other prisoners, I was not allowed to turn off the light, because that would have increased the risk of suicide. That was unthinkable and went on for years until I arrived in Lübeck (where she was transferred to prison) in 1980.
The entire interview with Möller, in which she talks about 1968, the movement in Germany and the origins and goals of the RAF, is available in Italian at read here.
