Baader, Andreas (1943–1977)

German radical left-wing political activist. With Ulrike Meinhof (1934–1976) and Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977), he formed the Rote Armee Fraktion/Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader–Meinhof gang, urban guerrillas who aimed to bring down the West German state through acts of violence and political assassination. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977, he and Ensslin both died in prison, allegedly by suicide.

Baader was born in Munich. He studied under the Palestinian revolutionary group al-Fatah in Jordan, before returning to Germany to join the 1960s student protest movement. He was imprisoned in 1968 for setting fire to shops in Frankfurt, but escaped in 1970. His death followed the failure of the RAF to secure the release of its three leaders by holding a Lufthansa plane hostage at Mogadishu, Somalia.