The Baader Meinhof Complex (, ) is a 2008 German drama film directed by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust. It retells the story of the early years of the West German far-left terrorist organisation the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction, or Red Army Faction, a.k.a. RAF) from 1967 to 1977.
The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 66th Golden Globe Awards.
Plot
On 2 June 1967, the Shah of Iran visits West Berlin and attends a performance at the Deutsche Oper. Angered at his policies in governing Iran, members of the West German student movement protest. The police and the Shah's security team attack the protesters, and unarmed protester Benno Ohnesorg is fatally shot by Officer Karl-Heinz Kurras.
Ohnesorg's death outrages West Germany, including left wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof, who claims in a televised debate that the democratically elected government of West Germany is a fascist police state. Inspired by Meinhof's rhetoric, charismatic radicals Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader mastermind the of 1968. While covering their trial, Ulrike Meinhof finds herself deeply moved by their commitment to armed struggle against what they see as a Neo-Nazi Government. She secures a jailhouse interview with Ensslin and the two strike up a close friendship. Soon after, Meinhof leaves her husband for journalist Peter Homann, an associate of the radicals.
Meanwhile, Ensslin and Baader have been released pending an appeal and attract various young people, including Astrid Proll and Peter-Jurgen Boock. After spending some time abroad, Baader, Ensslin and Proll return to West Germany and begin living with Meinhof. Increasingly bored with her middle-class life, Meinhof longs to take more violent action. Even though Ensslin tells her that sacrifices must be made for the revolution, Meinhof does not wish to leave her children. But then, Baader is arrested. Using her connections, Meinhof arranges for him to be interviewed off prison grounds, where Ensslin and the others spring him from custody. While the plan called for Meinhof to look like an innocent journalist caught in a prison break, she flees with Baader and Ensslin, thereby incriminating herself in the attempted murders of an unarmed civilian and two policemen.
After leaving Meinhof's two children in Sicily, the group receives training in a Fatah camp in Jordan, where the egotistical and promiscuous Germans enrage their Muslim hosts. Homann leaves the group after overhearing Meinhof, Baader, and Ensslin asking Fatah to kill him. Having also learned that Meinhof wishes to send her two children to a training camp for suicide bombers, Homann informs Meinhof's former colleague Stefan Aust, who returns the children to their father.
Returning to Germany and styling themselves the Red Army Faction (RAF), Baader and his followers launch a campaign of bank robberies. In response, BKA chief Horst Herold orders all local police to be put at Federal command for one day. During that day, RAF member Petra Schelm drives through a roadblock and is chased by two cops. When cornered, she initiates a gunfight and is fatally shot by their return fire. Regarding this as murder, Baader and Ensslin overrule Meinhof's objections and begin systematically bombing police stations and United States Military bases. As grisly footage of the maimed and the dead appears onscreen, Meinhof's press statements rationalizing the bombings are heard in voiceover.
As things escalate, Herold orders the BKA to pioneer criminal profiling and RAF members begin to be arrested. Baader and Holger Meins are caught after a shoot-out with police. Ensslin and Meinhof are captured soon after. In separate prisons, the RAF inmates stage a hunger strike which results in Meins' death. The German student movement considers this to be murder. The authorities then move Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe to Stammheim Prison, where they work on their defense for their trial and smuggle orders outside.
