Baader, Andreas 1943-77
West German terrorist

Born in Munich, into a middle-class family, he became associated with the student protest movement of the later 1960s and was imprisoned for setting fire to department stores in Frankfurt in 1968. Critical of Germany's post-war materialism and military dominance by the USA, he formed, with Ulrike Meinhof, the underground guerilla group Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction). The Faction 'sprang' Baader from prison in 1970 and carried out a series of political assassinations and terrorist outrages. He was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977 and, after the Red Army Faction failed to secure his release by hi-jacking a Lufthansa passenger plane at Mogadishu, Somalia, he committed suicide.