About Baader-Meinhof.com
Baader-Meinhof.com is the sole work of me, Richard Huffman. It's entirely written and designed by me, save for translated content, selected photos, and clips of videos; I have tried to credit the original authors of those works when possible. My mother, Vicki, also has generously lent her considerable help through on-going proofreading and editing
I first became interested in the subject when I learned that my father was targeted by left-wing German terrorists in the early 1970s.Initially my work was part of my university senior thesis project. While researching the project around 1996 and 1997, I was struck by by how little information was available on the internet; and how biased that information was. I decided to created an unbiased source of information about the group and era. The web site went online in the summer of 1997.
I have several goals with this site. I want it to be the type of site where a person could get completely subsumed through exploring. I want it to be incredibly rich, and seemingly endlessly detailed, but I also want it to be easy to navigate. I want it to be incredibly comprehensive; so that a student of the era literally will not have to go anywhere but this site because of it's detail and rich source of source documents. I want the site to be interesting for the lay reader, but extremely useful for a student of the era.
Since 1997, this web site has become one of the most popular destinations for information about the roots of terrorism. As of late 2008, more than 2 million visitors have explored the web site.
I have been featured in documentaries about the Baader-Meinhof Group, and have been interviewed by Macleans, CNN, Radio Austria, Deutsche Welle, National Public Radio, the Times of London, the BBC and many other outlets. Read a couple of extensive online interviews with me.
I am currently at work on The Gun Speaks; The Baader-Meinhof Gang at the Dawn of Terror. I hope to have the book published in 2009 or 2010.
In addition to working on this site, I have served as the director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Progressive Animal Welfare Society, the Outreach Manager for Seattle Audubon, and most recently I was the Executive Director of Purrfect Pals, the world's largest cat-only adoption organization and sanctuary. If you would like to learn more about me, feel free to visit my personal website. Checkout the video sections; my Europe videos are fun.
A note on the URL of this website; to a certain extent the URL for this website implies that it is somehow the "official" site of the Baader-Meinhof group. Of course this isn't true and I take a very non-partisan approach to the group. I think the biggest value that my site offers is a reasonable, balanced approach to this very sensitive historical era.
Please feel free to contact me.
