I ACTUALLY DID THIS ON TIME.

 The first generation of the RAF was relatively careful with what they did and I believe they were relatively certain they’d lose people along the way. Their very first attacks were robbing banks and only taking the money from the very rich and then the ever present ‘escalation’ appeared. They started growing out and attacking American military bases in Germany. Things then started going awry after the attack on The Springer (or whatever that newspaper thing was called). In that case they had called the company to tell them there was a bomb but the company didn’t do anything and therefore innocent civilians were killed.

At the beginning of the movie the RAF seemed to be doing justified activity against the government because things needed to change and peaceful protests weren’t working.  As the RAF grew further and further away from the first generation they seemed to grow further and further from their original cause and much less approachable because things were starting to change and their cause seemed less viable.

He acted like the ultimate teenage rebel and as if he’d never grown up honestly. This was good from the group perspective, he was there to give them a vision and the attitude the group needed to succeed even though it alienated Ulrike, especially towards the end. It was bad when dealing with people in positions of power who do not treat kindly to those with that kind of attitude.