---
title: "Attacks on American Bases in Germany: The RAF and the NATO Targets, 1972–1985"
url: https://writesidesofhistory.com/raf-attacks-on-american-bases-in-germany-1972-1985/
description: "From the Frankfurt and Heidelberg bombs of May 1972 to Rhein-Main in 1985, the Red Army Faction struck US forces in West Germany."
era: modern
published: 2026-10-19
topics: ["cold-war"]
words: 1518
publisher: "Writesides of History"
licence: "Quote freely, with attribution to Writesides of History and a link to the article url. The articles are written and published by Writesides of History, which is both author and publisher."
cite_as: https://writesidesofhistory.com/raf-attacks-on-american-bases-in-germany-1972-1985/
sources:
  - "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die erste Generation der RAF, 2007 (scholarly)"
  - "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die zweite Generation der RAF, 2007 (scholarly)"
  - "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die dritte Generation der RAF (1982–1998), 2007 (scholarly)"
  - "Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Die Namen der Toten, 2007 (scholarly)"
  - "Attacks of the Rote Armee Fraktion, 1970–1998, 2026 (reference)"
---

# Attacks on American Bases in Germany: The RAF and the NATO Targets, 1972–1985

**Between May 1972 and August 1985 the Red Army Faction attacked American military sites in West Germany at least seven times, killing seven people at the places the Federal Republic hosted its principal ally's army and air force. Only the first set of attacks ended in a conviction; most of the rest remain, as far as the public record goes, unsolved.**

The Federal Republic in the Cold War was not only a state but a garrison. Hundreds of thousands of NATO troops, most of them American, were stationed on its soil, and the headquarters of US Army Europe and of the US Air Forces in Europe stood in Heidelberg and at Ramstein. For a group that described West German society as an extension of American power, these places were the obvious symbols. This article follows the attacks in order, says plainly where the evidence stops, and does not choose between accounts where the record does not.

## The May offensive of 1972

The first attacks came in a single fortnight. On 11 May 1972 three devices exploded at the Frankfurt building housing the headquarters of the US Army's V Corps. A US Army officer, Paul A. Bloomquist, was killed and more than a dozen people were wounded, some seriously. The action was claimed by a "Kommando Petra Schelm", named after a member killed by police in 1971.

Thirteen days later, on 24 May, two car bombs exploded at the Heidelberg headquarters of US Army Europe. Three soldiers died: Clyde R. Bonner, Ronald A. Woodward and Charles L. Peck. The claim came from a "Kommando 15. Juli". Our companion article on [how the group wrote its own record](https://writesidesofhistory.com/the-kommando-statement-how-the-raf-wrote-its-own-record/) explains why the naming of these commandos mattered as much as the bombs.

These two attacks are the exception in this story. The people held responsible for the May offensive were tried in the specially built courtroom described in [Stammheim as a building](https://writesidesofhistory.com/stammheim-as-a-building-a-courtroom-built-for-a-trial/), and in April 1977 the three surviving defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. The legal finding is the reason the dataset records these two rows as attributed.

## The justification, and its limits

The group's claim statements presented the bombings as a response to American bombing in Vietnam, and the Heidelberg headquarters was named as a command centre for it. That is the group's own account, written to justify the deaths, and it is not evidence of what the targets actually did. Nor did the statements explain why a lieutenant colonel's death or that of three soldiers, none of whom chose the war, advanced any argument. The persuasive power of such texts lay in their form, not in their logic.

## Seven years of silence, then a new phase

After 1972 the American garrison largely left the group's operational agenda. The attention of the "second generation" turned to the West German state, to the judiciary and to business, culminating in the events of [the German Autumn of 1977](https://writesidesofhistory.com/the-german-autumn-of-1977-day-by-day/). When NATO and the US returned as targets, it was under a different strategy: from around 1979 the group spoke of a common anti-imperialist front in Western Europe, and of NATO's military leadership as the opponent.

On 25 June 1979 a bomb exploded under a road at Mons in Belgium as the car of General Alexander Haig, then NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, passed. Haig was not hurt. No perpetrator was identified, and the dataset records the attribution as low-confidence. The attack is one of several where the group's authorship is suspected but not established.

## Ramstein and Heidelberg, 1981

The next attacks came in late summer 1981, just as the debate over NATO's missile deployments was heating up (see [NATO's response to the SS-20 crisis](https://writesidesofhistory.com/natos-ss20-missile-crisis-response/)).

On 31 August 1981 a car bomb exploded at the headquarters of the US Air Forces in Europe at Ramstein Air Base. About twenty people were injured. A "Kommando Sigurd Debus" claimed it. Two weeks later, on 15 September, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the armoured car of General Frederick Kroesen, commander of US Army Europe, in Heidelberg. He and his wife were slightly injured and survived. A "Kommando Gudrun Ensslin" claimed the attack.

For both, the dataset records that no perpetrator was identified. Public sources differ over who took part in the Kroesen attack, and since no court established the facts, this article names no one. What can be said is that the group claimed both operations, and that the claims were taken seriously at the time.

## The third generation and the airbase murder of 1985

The group's last generation also looked to NATO. In December 1984 an attempt on the NATO school at Oberammergau failed when the device was found before it exploded. Then came the worst attack on American personnel since 1972.

On the night of 7 August 1985 a US serviceman, Edward Pimental, was shot dead in Wiesbaden. His identity card was taken. The next day, 8 August, the card was used to gain access to Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt, where a car bomb exploded. Airman Frank H. Scarton and a civilian employee, Becky Joe Bristol, were killed, and more than twenty people were injured. A "Kommando George Jackson" claimed the bombing, in a statement that also announced an alliance with the French group Action Directe.

The killing of a young soldier to obtain a pass is probably the most disturbing single act in the chain. It showed how the ordinary tools of base security, a card and a gate guard, could be turned against the base. In the following years several people were convicted in connection with these crimes, but the dataset treats the evidentiary position carefully, recording the attacks as only partly attributed and noting that most third-generation members were never identified.

## Chronology

| Date | Target | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 11 May 1972 | US Army V Corps headquarters, Frankfurt | One US officer killed, many wounded |
| 24 May 1972 | US Army Europe headquarters, Heidelberg | Three soldiers killed |
| 25 June 1979 | NATO commander's car, Mons, Belgium | Target unhurt; no perpetrator identified |
| 31 August 1981 | USAFE headquarters, Ramstein | About twenty injured |
| 15 September 1981 | Car of the US Army Europe commander, Heidelberg | Commander and wife slightly injured |
| 18 December 1984 | NATO school, Oberammergau | Device found before detonation |
| 7–8 August 1985 | Wiesbaden; Rhein-Main Air Base | Three people killed, more than twenty injured |

The full rows are in [our record of these operations](https://writesidesofhistory.com/datasets/red-army-faction-attacks/).

## What the pattern shows

Three things stand out. First, the attacks on US targets came in clusters and corresponded to shifts in the group's strategy, not to a steady campaign. Second, the legal record is thin after 1972, which echoes [the wider story of the third generation](https://writesidesofhistory.com/the-third-generation-twenty-years-of-attacks-and-almost-no-convictions/) and the scale of the state's response in [the Rasterfahndung](https://writesidesofhistory.com/rasterfahndung-how-terrorism-shaped-german-privacy-law/). Third, the victims were mostly young enlisted personnel or civilians employed on the bases, not the commanders the group's statements claimed to be fighting.

The bases themselves also changed. The alliance context that made them central is described in [NATO nuclear sharing policy, 1957–1987](https://writesidesofhistory.com/nato-nuclear-sharing-policy-1957-1987/) and in [NATO intelligence sharing after 1980](https://writesidesofhistory.com/nato-intelligence-sharing-1980-2000/).

## Conclusion

The attacks on American bases were neither the group's most frequent nor its best-documented operations, yet they connect its story to the Cold War's central fact in Germany: the presence of foreign armies. The honest account has two halves. In 1972 there were claims, deaths and convictions. From 1979 on there were claims, injuries and deaths, and in many cases no judicial answer to the question of who was responsible. Where the record is silent, this article has stayed silent.

## Frequently asked questions

**Who was killed in the 1972 attacks on US bases?** On 11 May 1972 Paul A. Bloomquist, a US Army officer, died in the Frankfurt bombing. On 24 May three soldiers, Clyde R. Bonner, Ronald A. Woodward and Charles L. Peck, died at Heidelberg.

**Were the perpetrators convicted?** For the May 1972 offensive, a court found the leading members guilty, and the three surviving defendants received life sentences in April 1977. For the Ramstein and Kroesen attacks of 1981 and the Mons attack of 1979, no perpetrator was identified.

**Why did the group attack American targets?** Its claim statements cited the Vietnam War and later NATO's military buildup. Those statements are the group's own justification, not independent evidence of what the targets did.

**What happened at Rhein-Main in 1985?** A serviceman was shot in Wiesbaden on 7 August and his identity card taken. It was used the next day to enter the base, where a car bomb killed two people, an airman and a civilian employee.

## Recommended reading

- Jeremy Varon, *Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence* (2004) - the comparative study that places the anti-American rhetoric of the claims in the context of Vietnam-era protest. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0520241193)
- Karrin Hanshew, *Terror and Democracy in West Germany* (2012) - on how the Federal Republic responded to the violence and argued about the limits of self-defence. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107017378)
- Sarah Colvin, *Ulrike Meinhof and West German Terrorism: Language, Violence, and Identity* (2009) - reads the group's own writing closely, which is what its claim statements demand. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1571134158)