Gudrun Ensslin (August 15 1940 - October 18 1977) was a founder of the Rote Armee Fraktion, the most infamous German terrorist group of the postbellum . After becoming romantically acquainted with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the radicalization of Baader's leftist beliefs.

In June of 1967 Ensslin (while in the United States) participated in a political protest against the Shah of Iran, who was visiting Germany at the time. Though the Shah was viewed by the West as a reformer, his regime was known to be brutal against political opponents, and the state police force (SAVAK) was believed to routinely torture prisoners.

Meanwhile, in Germany, fights broke out between pro-Shah and anti-Shah factions on the Shah's arrival. A young man by the ironic name of Benno Ohnesorg (ohnesorg means "carefree") was shot in the back of the head by a police officer. This killing was the start of a terrorist organisation known as the Movement 2 June, which would become allied to the Baader-Meinhof Gang. The next night, Gudrun Ensslin angrily denounced West Germany as a fascist state at a leftist meeting. (More detail of German riot).

The police officer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, was charged with manslaughter and acquitted of the charge on November 23, 1967 causing a public outrage. In a year, things cooled down however, and this enraged Ensslin so much that she gave her child to her father to take part in the revolution. At this time she met Andreas Baader, with whom she became romantically acquainted, and soon after they founded the Rote Armee Fraktion.

Early life

Ensslin was born in the German village of Bartholomä , the fourth of seven children. Her father, Helmut Ensslin, was a pastor of the Evangelical Church in Germany, also known as EKD . Ensslin was a stereotypical good girl, who did well at school and enjoyed reading the Bible. In her family, the social injustices of the world were often discussed and Gudrun is said to have been sensitized to social problems in West-Germany and the world as a whole.

At the age of eighteen, Gudrun got the chance to spend a year in the United States of America, where she attended a high school in Pennsylvania. After high school, Gudrun went to study philosophy, Anglistics and Germanistics, where she met Bernward Vesper , a left-wing German. Together with two other students, Ensslin and Vesper started a small business, a publishing house called Studio neue Literatur. At this time, Ensslin also tried to become a teacher, but her skills were only 'adequate', which demotivated her.

In 1965 Gudrun and Bernward married and went to West-Berlin, where Gudrun worked on a doctorate at the Free University. In West-Berlin, they demonstrated against the Bomb and the presence of American military bases.

In 1967, Ensslin gave birth to a son, Felix Robert. The marriage between Ensslin and Vesper was doing badly however, and Ensslin performed in a low-budget pornographic movie and became greatly engrossed in leftist literature.

Ensslin commited suicide by hanging early in the morning of October 18 (known to Germans as "Death Night "), 1977, which was part in a set of events called German Autumn.