Brigitte Mohnhaupt was the leading figure of the second generation of the Red Army Faction, the West German terrorist group that killed 34 people and injured hundreds in a campaign lasting 22 years. In 1977 the group carried out three connected acts that cost nine lives: the killing of the federal prosecutor general Siegfried Buback and two men with him in April, the killing of the banker Jürgen Ponto in July, and the kidnapping and killing of the employers' federation president Hanns-Martin Schleyer, along with four men who were with him, from September to October.
On April 2, 1985 the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart convicted Mohnhaupt, as ringleader of the organization, of nine murders and nine attempted murders. The sentence was five life terms plus 15 years. In 1986 German law was changed so that several life sentences are merged into one, and her minimum term was set at 24 years. She was 57 when she left prison in March 2007 after more than 24 years in custody. The court that ordered her parole said it was not a pardon.
Mohnhaupt was born in 1949 in Rheinberg, near Essen. After school she went to Munich, where she studied English and history and joined a left-wing commune in the late 1960s. In 1969 she took part in an occupation of the Amerikahaus in Munich as a protest against the Vietnam War. She joined the Red Army Faction in 1971 and went underground.
In June 1972 she was arrested along with almost the whole first generation of the group. She was sentenced to four years and eight months for membership of a criminal organization, forgery and other offenses. By the late 1970s she was the leader of the second generation, which, with Christian Klar at its core, worked underground on strategies to force the release of the imprisoned first-generation members.
On April 7, 1977 in Karlsruhe, Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback was killed together with his driver, Wolfgang Göbel. Georg Wurster, who headed the vehicle pool of the federal prosecutor's office, died of his injuries on April 13. On July 30, 1977 Jürgen Ponto, spokesman of the board of the Dresdner Bank, was killed during an attempted kidnapping.
On September 5, 1977 Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the German employers' federation, was kidnapped in Cologne. His driver, Heinz Marcisz, and three police officers, Reinhold Brändle, Helmut Ulmer and Roland Pieler, were killed. Schleyer himself was killed in October 1977. The imprisoned first-generation leaders died by suicide in October 1977.
Mohnhaupt is described as the planner of the Buback killing and as significantly involved in the Schleyer kidnapping. She was convicted over the Ponto killing as well. The trials did not establish who personally carried out the killings of Buback and Schleyer, and the question of Klar's own part in the Buback case was left unresolved.
Mohnhaupt was arrested in November 1982 in Hesse. Adelheid Schulz was arrested with her on November 11, 1982 near Offenbach. Klar was arrested the same month.
Among the offenses for which she was convicted was an attack in Heidelberg on September 15, 1981 on the car of the US Army general Frederick Kroesen. Kroesen and a passenger were slightly injured. Klar, Mohnhaupt, Ingrid Jakobsmeier and Henning Beer were convicted over this attack.
The trial of Klar and Mohnhaupt, described as the leadership of the second generation, began on February 1, 1984 before the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart at Stammheim. Proceedings against other members were running in parallel in Stammheim and elsewhere.
The verdict came on April 2, 1985. The court found Mohnhaupt and Klar guilty of taking part in the 1977 murders of Buback, Ponto and Schleyer. Mohnhaupt was convicted as ringleader of nine murders and nine attempted murders and received five life sentences plus 15 years. Klar was convicted of nine murders and eleven attempted murders and received the same overall sentence. The court set minimum terms of 24 years for Mohnhaupt and 26 years for Klar because of the particular gravity of their guilt.
In 1977 the Federal Constitutional Court held that a prisoner serving a life sentence must keep a real chance of regaining freedom. Parole becomes possible after a minimum of 15 years, and only if release can be justified with regard to the security interests of the public. A court can extend the minimum term where it finds a particular gravity of guilt, which is what the Stuttgart court did in both cases. In 1986 the law was changed so that multiple life sentences are treated as a single life sentence.
Klar's minimum term ran until January 3, 2009. In April 2007 Federal President Horst Köhler rejected his petition for a pardon, and Klar was released on probation in 2008.
Mohnhaupt's minimum term ended on March 26, 2007. In February 2007 the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart ruled that she could be released on parole once it had run out. It found no indication of continuing dangerousness. The court stressed that this was not a decision on clemency, which was a separate procedure and was what Klar had sought from the federal president. Prosecutors had also concluded that she no longer posed a threat, and the court noted that she had not fully distanced herself from her violent past.
She left a prison in Bavaria in the last week of March 2007, after about 24 years in custody under the current sentence and 29 years in all, counting the earlier term. She was placed on five years of supervised parole and had to report regularly to the authorities.
Reaction was divided. Relatives of the dead opposed her release. A number of political figures argued that the decision showed the state could be generous, while others said remorse had to come first. The group itself had declared its dissolution in 1998.
In 2011 Mohnhaupt was among the former leaders who stayed silent in the trial of Verena Becker, who was charged in connection with the Buback killing before the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart. She, Klar and Knut Folkerts, all convicted over that killing, refused to testify. The Federal Court of Justice had ruled that Klar had a comprehensive right to refuse to testify on the group's acts of 1977, because he risked incriminating himself, and the presiding judge, Hermann Wieland, had asked him in vain to help clarify the attack.
The first generation of the group was arrested in 1972, and its founders were tried at Stammheim. The second generation, led by Mohnhaupt, concentrated on freeing those prisoners. The year 1977 is called the German Autumn. It ended on October 18 with the freeing of a hijacked Lufthansa aircraft at Mogadishu by the unit GSG 9, after hijackers acting for the group's demands had killed the pilot, Jürgen Schumann. Schleyer was killed in the days that followed, and his death became known on October 19.
Who carried out the killings of Buback and Schleyer was never established at trial. Historians such as Wolfgang Kraushaar consider the evidence on the Buback case too weak to name the person who carried it out. A former group member has named another member as responsible; Klar gave no statement on it. The exact circumstances of the Ponto killing remain unclear.
1949: Born in Rheinberg.
1969: Takes part in the occupation of the Amerikahaus in Munich.
1971: Joins the Red Army Faction.
June 1972: Arrested with most of the first generation; sentenced to four years and eight months.
April 7, 1977: Buback and Göbel killed in Karlsruhe; Wurster dies April 13.
July 30, 1977: Ponto killed.
September 5, 1977: Schleyer kidnapped in Cologne; four men with him killed.
October 1977: Schleyer killed; first-generation leaders die by suicide.
September 15, 1981: Attack on the car of General Kroesen in Heidelberg.
November 1982: Arrested in Hesse.
February 1, 1984: Trial opens at Stammheim.
April 2, 1985: Convicted; five life sentences plus 15 years.
1986: Law changed so that several life sentences are merged into one.
February 12, 2007: Court orders parole once the minimum term ends.
March 26, 2007: Minimum term ends.
March 2007: Leaves prison in Bavaria.
2011: Refuses to testify in the Becker trial.