Daniela Klette and the last great hunt

The act of challenging the state authority of the state, of fundamentally questioning property and power, is a “criminal” charge that never expires: at 67 years old, alleged RAF member Daniela Klette has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The arrest and conviction of Daniela Klette became a national spectacle. In this commentary, Ian Nadge and Jakob Reimann explain why the RAF still functions as a political enemy image in Germany today—and why this obsession says far more about the present than the past.

Helicopters over Berlin. Armed police units outside apartment buildings. Breaking news specials. Politicians in full panic mode. For a moment, you could almost believe the German state had finally decided to crack down on tax fraud, real-estate corporations, or far-right networks.

Instead, it was Daniela Klette.

Arrested in Berlin-Kreuzberg in 2024, she was sentenced this week by the Regional Court in Verden to 13 years in prison—for several alleged robberies supposedly carried out to finance life in the underground.

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