Ulrike Meinhof

German left-wing militant (1934–1976)

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Lived 1934–1976, aged 42Germany

Germany JournalistsJournalist

Wikipedia
51 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1934–1976
Aged 42
Known for
A German Youth
2015

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

A journalist who abandoned the typewriter for armed struggle, then died in a cell under circumstances that ignited conspiracy theories as combustible as the bombs her group planted.

Biography

About

Born in 1934, Ulrike Meinhof worked as a left-wing journalist and author before co-founding the Red Army Faction in West Germany — the militant group the press called the "Baader-Meinhof gang." She is credited with writing The Urban Guerilla Concept in 1971, a manifesto that condemned reformism and invoked Mao to frame armed struggle as the highest form of Marxism-Leninism. Her first RAF operation was the 1970 jailbreak of Andreas Baader; she was sentenced to eight years for her role in the near-fatal shooting during that escape. After participating in the RAF's May Offensive in 1972, she was…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof

saidMay 1968

Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more.

— Published in “Vom Protest zum Widerstand” [“From Protest to Resistance”], konkret, no. 5 (May 1968), p. 5.

Ulrike Meinhof

saidundated

We are acting for those who are trying to free themselves from terror and violence. And if no means other than war remains for them, then we are for their war.

— Stefan Aust, Terrorism in Germany: The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Ulrike Meinhof

saidundated