The hardcore founders of the Red Army Faction - Meinhof, Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe - were arrested relatively early in der Volkskrieg (the people's war) in 1972. Nearly three years passed before they were brought to trial in a specially constructed courthouse within Stammheim Prison.

Days before the highly charged trial began in the spring of 1975, members of the second generation of the Red Army Faction took over the German embassy in Stockholm, grabbed hostages and demanded the release of 26 "political prisoners," including Meinhof, Baader, Ensslin and Raspe.

During the heyday of the Baader-Meinhof gang, police raided his office and found documents that led them to believe he was operating an "information center" for the terrorists. [Kurt Groenewold] was later accused of passing messages between terrorists in prison. He was prosecuted, unsuccessfully, for conspiring with the Baader-Meinhof gang and was disbarred for several years.