The so-called Third Generation of the Red Army Faction was a group of up to 20 members and 250 supporters, which is believed to have carried out a series of acts of sabotage and several assassinations.

In addition to Ernst Zimmermann, the head of the defense contractor MTU, the Third Generation of the RAF murdered, among others, Siemens manager Karl Heinz Beckurts, Foreign Office diplomat Gerold von Braunmühl, Deutsche Bank CEO Alfred Herrhausen, and Treuhandanstalt President Detlev Karsten Rohwedder. In 1993, the group carried out a bomb attack on the Weiterstadt Prison, causing property damage amounting to 100 to 120 million DM. On April 20, 1998, the RAF announced its self-dissolution.

In contrast to previous generations of the RAF, the so-called third generation of the RAF is closely linked to Wiesbaden, the capital of the state of Hesse. Among its members are two Wiesbaden residents who even held leadership positions: Wolfgang Grams and Birgit Hogefeld. Both were born in Wiesbaden; before going underground, they lived for a long time in various shared apartments and were part of a radical left-wing circle in Wiesbaden that actively and passively supported the RAF through organizations such as Rote Hilfe and the Socialist Initiative Wiesbaden. Grams and Hogefeld, who were also a couple, were able to draw on the networks of sympathizers they had established during this time while in hiding. Grams and Hogefeld are suspected of having been directly and immediately involved in a large number of the RAF’s terrorist actions. Grams was killed on June 27, 1993, in Bad Kleinen. Hogefeld was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 and released from prison in 2011.

Wiesbaden was also the scene of a cold-blooded murder. On August 8, 1985, Birgit Hogefeld and/or Eva Haule lured U.S. soldier Edward F. Pimental out of a nightclub in Wiesbaden and shot him in a wooded area near the Adamstal estate in order to obtain his identification card. This card gave the RAF access to the Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt am Main, which was the target of a bomb attack on August 9, 1985. One U.S. soldier and one civilian employee were killed in the attack, and eleven other people were seriously injured.