The so-called Third Generation of the Red Army Faction was a group of up to 20 people and 250 supporters, to which a series of acts of sabotage and several assassinations are attributed.

In addition to the head of the armaments company MTU Ernst Zimmermann, the Third Generation of the RAF murdered Siemens manager Karl Heinz Beckurts, diplomat Gerold von Braunmühl, the head of Deutsche Bank Alfred Herrhausen and the president of the Treuhandanstalt Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, among others. In 1993, the group carried out an explosives attack on the Weiterstadt prison, causing material damage amounting to DM 100 to 120 million. On April 20, 1998, the RAF declared its self-dissolution.

In contrast to the previous generations of the RAF, the so-called third generation of the RAF is closely linked to the Hessian state capital of Wiesbaden. Among its members were two Wiesbaden citizens who even belonged to the commando level: Wolfgang Grams and Birgit Hogefeld. Both were born in Wiesbaden, lived in various shared flats for a long time before going underground and belonged to a radical left-wing environment in Wiesbaden that actively and passively supported the RAF in organizations such as Rote Hilfe and Sozialistische Initiative Wiesbaden. Grams and Hogefeld, who were also a couple, were able to draw on the networks of sympathizers established during this time in the underground. Grams and Hogefeld are suspected of having been directly and immediately involved in many of the RAF's terrorist actions. Grams died 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 the US soldier Edward F. Pimental out of a Wiesbaden discotheque and shot him in a wooded area near the Adamstal estate in order to obtain his identification card. This gave the RAF access to the Rhine-Main Airbase in Frankfurt am Main, which was the target of an explosives attack on August 9, 1985. One US soldier and a civilian employee were killed in the attack and eleven other people were seriously injured.