Radical members and leaders Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ennslin led an increasingly violent and ruthless campaign of bombing, kidnapping and assassination against leading industrialist figures, bankers and judges that culminated in the hijack of a Lufthansa jet filled with passengers. By this time the three leaders had been imprisoned and were to be traded in exchange for the safe return of the plane and passengers. However, German special forces recaptured the plane and the next morning the leaders were found dead in their cells. It remains up for debate whether the Government took further action, or the prisoners committed suicide – there was no concrete explanation, but a corporate chairman was executed in revenge.

The Baader Meinhof Gang saw armed struggle as the only solution. They also accepted the risks involved, knowing full well that it would result in an ultimate sacrifice. Perhaps the American-Apparel-clad hipsters that will inevitably flock to see this film when it is released here on 14 November will be forced to think about what it means to effect real change, and whether a Baader or a Meinhof could ever be found today among them.

To start some cogs turning we thought it’d be a good idea to compile a modern-day hitlist that we think the gang would have been proud of:

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex is to be screened in the UK on 14 November.