Baader-Meinhof gang was a group of terrorists in the German Government, who were gender sensitive since almost half of the people were women. This was funny because most of the terrorist gangs are mostly composed of men. The group had three most active leaders who were Meinhof, Baader and Gudrun Ensslin. This gang is only interested with socialism where most of them wanted to become revolutionaries (Huffman, 2008). Many of them were only willing to take part in demonstrations because they found them interesting. They also wanted to recruit many young people as much as possible.
Many times people from their group were caught and killed but they didn’t see that as a correctional plan, but continued with their demonstrations committing more harm to the community. One of the methods that the group used to strengthen its gang was taking the recruits to the desert in the guerrilla camp which belonged to the Palestinians (Huffman,2008). There, they learned how to fall out of moving cars, shooting guns, throwing grenades and annoy the Palestinians hosts as much as they could. Also after they trained the recruits they sent them to go and attack the targeted groups. However, when one of them thought of leaving the gang, they organised a shootout so as to be killed. Another method that the gang used is that, when one of them is caught they mobilise the other youth to cause mayhem until they are released. The main target of that gang was the police since they thought that they are the ones opposing them. For instance, one of the police officers goes to Baader-Meinhof bank robbery and is shot dead (Huffman, 2008). They did this after one of them is shot by the police.
In my opinion the government of Germany has failed, when dealing with this group because instead of arresting the gang members, most of them have been shot dead. The government of Germany has not given the gang members a chance to reform. The government instead has pushed the gang further since the police have instilled fear to them by the shootings. The people who are at the gang will never have the zeal of changing since they have not been given a chance to change.
If I was in the government in 1967, I would have sensitized the youth on the negative issues in the gangs. By doing so, people would not see that gang as the oppressed and join it. Media campaigns against the gangs would also help a lot to sensitize the people planning to join the gang. Above all, I would also arrest the people in the gang so as to put them in the correctional facilities for correction and not to torture them.
REFERENCES
Huffman, R. (2008). The Gun Speaks. baader-meinhof.com. Retrieved from http://www.baader-
meinhof.com/gunspeaks/
