KEY POINTS:
PARIS - Nearly three decades ago, Germany lived through one of the grimmest episodes in its post-World War II history, a time when many citizens feared the country's fledgling democracy would crumble through youth revolt or fall once more under the heel of authoritarianism.
The moment was "the German autumn" and the people who shook West Germany to its foundations were a few dozen young men and women - the Red Army Faction, the most ruthless of the ultra-left terror groups that sprang up in Europe in the 1970s.
With bombings, shootings and kidnappings, these middle-class members of West Germany's student protest movement prompted a crackdown on civil liberties, a strengthening of police powers and an anguished pondering about why the country's youth seemed so turbulent and alienated.
These memories of collective neurosis have come flooding back, spiced also by a moral debate. Two of the group's leaders, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar, are seeking to be freed after 24 years in jail for crimes for which they have never apologised.
Mohnhaupt and Klar took part in some of the RAF's bloodiest acts of terror. They killed the chief executive of the Dresdner Bank, Juergen Ponto, with Mohnhaupt shooting him point-blank five times through a bouquet of roses that they presented to him on the front door of his home. They shot dead the West Germany federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. And they were members of a "commando" that abducted, tortured and murdered Hanns-Martin Schleyer, the president of the German Employers' Federation.
Mohnhaupt, now 57, and Klar, 54, have served longer times in custody than any other former group member, and are among only four still behind bars. The others have been paroled.
Mohnhaupt was sentenced to five life terms and a 15-year term with a recommendation that she serve a minimum of 24 years, which comes up on March 26. Klar must serve a minimum of 26 years and will qualify for parole in two years. He is petitioning German President Horst Koehler to be released on the grounds of clemency.
A court in Stuttgart is due to rule on the parole request this month.
But a large block of opinion, including a majority of the public, if surveys are any guide, is against their release.
Schleyer's 90-year-old widow, Waltrude, is demanding they stay in jail. "These people don't deserve mercy. Neither Klar nor Mohnhaupt has shown any sign of remorse," she said.
Klaus Pflieger, the Stuttgart prosecutor-general, is fighting Mohnhaupt's parole request on the grounds that the 30th anniversary of the "German autumn" is coming up.
He argues that if freed, Mohnhaupt would become a chatshow darling and an instant celebrity, which would infringe the rights of the victims.
But Gerhard Blum, who was the tough-minded interior minister at the time of the "German autumn", says it is the state's duty, and in its interest, to show mercy.
"The constitution stipulates that human dignity also means that a person who is sentenced to life imprisonment must be given a perspective for freedom," he said.
Another powerful voice is that of Klaus Kinkel, a former foreign and justice minister, credited with dampening the risk of a resurgence of the group in the 1990s. "I think people who have been behind bars for so long must be given the chance to make their way back into society," he said.
Red Army's bloody reign
Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar were leaders of the Red Army Faction, the most ruthless of the ultra-left terror groups that sprang up in Europe in the 1970s.
They killed the chief executive of the Dresdner Bank, Juergen Ponto, and the West German federal prosecutor, Siegfried Buback, and were members of a "commando" that abducted, tortured and murdered Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the German employers' federation.
The possibility that Mohnhaupt, now 57, and Klar, 54, could be released from prison in the near future is stirring hot debate in Germany.
