left-wing extremism

In 2023, German activist Lina E. was convicted of membership in a left-extremist criminal association based in Dresden. The case centred on a series of violent attacks against right-wing individuals and property in Saxony between 2015 and 2019. The verdict sparked a wide debate in Germany about the boundaries between political activism and organised violence.

The Red Army Faction (RAF) was a far-left terrorist organisation that operated in West Germany from 1970 to 1998. Founded by Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and others, the group carried out kidnappings, bombings and assassinations targeting prominent business leaders and politicians. The RAF's campaign of violence, which claimed more than 30 lives, reached its peak during the autumn of 1977 — West Germany's gravest security crisis since the Second World War.