In one of Germany’s most high-profile trials involving the legacy of late-20th-century left-wing terrorism, a regional court has delivered its verdict. Daniela Klette, a 67-year-old former member of the notorious «third generation» of the Red Army Faction (RAF), has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after being found guilty of a series of violent armed robberies.
Decades Underground and a Sudden Arrest
Daniela Klette managed to evade justice for over 30 years. Alongside her fellow RAF fugitives, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, she had been on the run since the 1990s. Her decades spent in the deep underground came to an abrupt end in February 2024, when police arrested her at an apartment in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. She had been living there for years under a false identity, tutoring school children in math and participating in local dance classes.
A subsequent search of her apartment uncovered a staggering cache of weapons—including a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an anti-tank grenade launcher, and multiple handguns—as well as large amounts of cash.
Robberies for Survival, Not Terrorism
A key aspect of this trial was that Klette was not prosecuted for the terrorist attacks attributed to the RAF during its active years, as many of those crimes have passed the statute of limitations or require separate legal frameworks. Instead, the charges focused entirely on violent criminal offenses committed between 1999 and 2016.
The court found Klette guilty on several counts, including:
Attempted murder;
A series of gang-related armed robberies;
Illegal possession of military-grade weapons and explosives.
According to court documents, Klette and her accomplices carried out at least 13 armed raids on supermarkets and armored cash-in-transit vehicles across the federal states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The total amount stolen exceeded 2.7 million euros. The prosecution and the court concluded that these robberies lacked any political or ideological motive; the former radicals robbed purely to finance their expensive lives in hiding.
The Verdict and Its Aftermath
The prosecution had pushed for a lengthy sentence, emphasizing the extreme danger of the raids, during which firearms and heavy weaponry were discharged, putting the lives of couriers and bystanders at direct risk. The defense argued for leniency, citing Klette’s advanced age and the fact that no one was killed during the robberies.
The court’s final verdict of 13 years in prison reflects the severity of the crimes.
While this sentencing closes a major chapter in the pursuit of former RAF members, the story of the group’s «third generation» remains incomplete. Klette’s longtime accomplices, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, remain at large, and German authorities are continuing their intensive manhunt.
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