In the summer of 1967, during protests against the Shah of Iran’s state visit to West Berlin, an unarmed student named Benno Ohnesorg was shot and killed by a plainclothes policeman. Ohnesorg’s killing sent shock waves through German society, crystallizing the anger of a youth movement that viewed America’s presence in Vietnam as imperialism and its own government as authoritarian. The Baader Meinhof Complex charts the 10 tumultuous years that followed, as student protests paved the way to organized domestic terrorism. A particularly single-minded group of extremists, led by Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, founded the Red Army Faction to wage war on the state. As the group’s attacks intensified, the West German police were forced to modernize in order to make arrests that provoked new kidnappings and killings. Despite the arrest of several key Red Brigade members, the violence escalated, eventually culminating in the bloody “German Autumn” of 1977.

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