Item #P003981 [THE RAF IS BORN – THE RARE RAF FOUNDING MANIFESTO] Rote Armee Fraktion: Das Konzept Stadtguerilla [Red Army Faction: The urban guerrilla concept]. Ulrike Meinhof.

[Meinhof, Ulrike].

[THE RAF IS BORN – THE RARE RAF FOUNDING MANIFESTO] Rote Armee Fraktion: Das Konzept Stadtguerilla [Red Army Faction: The urban guerrilla concept].

Amsterdam: Niemec Verlag, [April 1971]. First printing of the small-format variant in quarto (30.7 × 21.3 cm). Stapled and with contemporary red adhesive tape along spine fold; 15, [1] pp. with RAF logo printed on the titlepage (the variant without the star on the title page and with hectographed page pagination). Faint horizontal crease throughout; last blank page somewhat stained; leaves somewhat toned; text with some underlinings; else very good. Item #P003981

First programmatic position paper of the Red Army Faction (RAF), in which they justify the violent liberation of Andreas Baader from prison (this action is generally regarded as the birth of the terrorist group) and announce their future terrorist actions in a manifesto. For the first time, the group refers to itself as the "Rote Armee Fraktion" (Red Army Faction) in this text written by Ulrike Meinhof, and this is also the first instance where the group's distinctive emblem appears in print. The copy offered here in a version (still) without the five-pointed star consisting of halftone dots. In addition to the very rare small-format version in quarto offered here, the large-format folio version (also without a star), which is more frequently found on the market, was printed later as a supplement to “Agit 883” (see: >htt ps://socialhistoryportal.o rg/sites/default/files/Index_RAF_Collection_1.p df<, July 31, 2025).

Although Gudrun Ensslin had already published a short text in the journal “Agil 883” after the Baader action entitled “Die Rote Armee aufbauen!” (Build up the Red Army!), Ensslin uses the term “Red Army” not only without the word “Fraktion” (faction), but also in a more abstract sense. The text published in “Agit 883” is not yet about a specific group with concrete intentions and strategies, but rather an abstract call for radicalization.

The designer of the striking signet is a constantly debated enigma. It is repeatedly noted with amusement in the literature that the weapon prominently displayed is not a Soviet Kalashnikov (with which Che Guevara, the Vietnamese communists, and other guerrillas fought in the Third World), but an MP 5 from the West German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch and thus, of all things, the submachine gun that is still standard equipment for the German police and its special units today. Nonetheless, the logo remained the symbol used by the group from 1971 until its dissolution in 1998. Various stories circulate about the creation of the iconic logo, which has since been the subject of an exhibition at the German Museum of Books and Writing, for example.

Thus, for example, the artist Thomas Bayerle is occasionally cited as a possible designer. Others suspect that the terrorist Holger Meins was the main designer, as he had studied for four semesters at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. It is now known from an interview in a German daily newspaper that Andreas Baader asked the advertising graphic designer Holm von Czettritz (known for creating the corporate design of large German companies) whether he could revise the first draft. According to his recollection, Czettritz declined with the words: "In its rusticity, it has an originality that I wouldn't change. It has to retain this rough original character. I'm telling you that as a brand designer." The logo, printed here for the first time, is now seared into the collective memory of Germans, not least because of the pictures and videos published by the RAF, which showed the kidnapped president of the employers' association, Hanns Martin Schleyer, in front of a poster with the emblem. These pictures with the logo could be seen over and over again on all the front pages and all the news programs.

The “urban guerrilla concept” already reckoned with such isolated, media-effective acts of terror that ran counter to the previous historical examples and ideas of “revolution”. With reference to Latin America, the former journalist Meinhof explains: "Urban guerrillas assume that the Prussian marching order, in which many so-called revolutionaries would like to lead the people into revolutionary struggle, will not exist. Assumes that when the situation is ripe for armed struggle, it will be too late to prepare for it." Meinhof then places himself in the short tradition of student protests and their forms of action, in order to finally propagate the “armed struggle” as a seamless and necessary development. The student movement is seen as a political preliminary stage, as political training: “It is important that one has had legal political experience before deciding to fight armed.” Conversely, for Meinhaupt this means: “We say: the political possibilities cannot really be exploited as long as the goal, the armed struggle, is not recognized as the goal of politicization (...).”

As of July 2025, KVK, OCLC locate only three copies of the folio edition in North America, and no copies worldwide of this smaller quarto variant.