Friday 1, March
Grenade found in Kreuzberg apartment of arrested ex-RAF terrorist
At the start of the week, Berlin police arrested Daniela Klette (65), the last living female member of RAF (Red Army Faction). The West German far-left militant group was responsible for a number of bombings, kidnappings, murders and armed robberies in the 1970s and 1980s, having emerged as a radical anti-capitalist response to West Germany’s perceived conservatism and failed de-Nazification in the post-war years. When the group officially disbanded in 1998, Klette and her accomplices went on the run.
On Thursday morning, police confirmed that they had uncovered ammunition, weapons and a grenade in Klette’s Kreuzberg apartment on Sebastianstrasse, where residents of the building had to be evacuated. According to reports, Klette had been living under the false name Claudia Ivone, and had apparently been leading a relatively normal life in Berlin, even taking part in the popular Carnival of Cultures parade back in 2011.
An arrest warrant had been out against her for years along with two other ex-RAF members, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, who are still on the run. Klette was being investigated for a number of crimes allegedly committed in the early 1990s, including an explosives attack on Weisterstadt prison in 1993 which resulted in damage amounting to around 123 million Deutsche Marks, and an armed attack on the US embassy in Bad Godesberg in 1991.
