Daniela Klette

Daniela Marie Luise Klette (born 5 November 1958) is a German left-wing militant. She is a suspected former German terrorist associated with the third generation Red Army Faction (RAF). She went underground in the 1990s and was arrested in February 2024.

Daniela Klette
Born	Daniela Marie Luise Klette (1958-11-05) 5 November 1958 (age 66) Karlsruhe, West Germany
Organization	Red Army Faction

Early life

Daniela Marie Luise Klette was born on 5 November 1958 in Karlsruhe, West Germany.^[1][2]

Activism

Klette was active in left-wing groups from 1975 onward. These groups included the Anti-NATO movement and initiatives against the construction of Runway 18 West at Frankfurt Airport.^[3]

Klette is an alleged member of the third generation Red Army Faction active during the 1980s and 1990s.^[4][5][6] Klette is suspect in the 1991 United States embassy sniper attack in Bonn and the 1993 explosives attack against Weiterstadt prison under construction in the state of Hesse.^[7]

In the 1990s, Klette went underground.^[8] In 1999, Klette, Garweg, and Staub were suspected of robbing DM 1 million from an armoured vehicle in Duisburg.^[9]

Referred to by the press as "RAF pensioners",^[10] Staub, Garweg, and Klette are also associated with several robberies in the 2000s and 2010s: in Bochum-Wattenscheid (27 December 2006), Wolfsburg (28 December 2015), Cremlingen (25 June 2016) and Stuhr (6 June 2015). The German public prosecutor's office had been investigating the three since 2015 for attempted murder and various attempted and completed aggravated robberies between 1999 and 2016.^[11] In 2016, three Germans matching their description were mistakenly arrested by Dutch police after renting a farmhouse near Medemblik in the north of the Netherlands.^[12] The Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office) put out a public appeal for information leading to her arrest, or that of accomplices Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub, offering a reward of €150,000.^[2]

Police found her after a tip-off from the public in November 2023.^[10]

As of February 2024 it was unclear how she managed to stay underground for 30 years.^[10]

Arrest

On 26 February 2024, Klette was arrested in Berlin by LKA Niedersachsen and the Berlin Police without resistance.^[4] She was charged with involvement in six armed robberies in which millions of euros were stolen, and at least one attempted murder. The crimes were alleged to have been committed between 1999 and 2016. Burkhard Garweg and Ernst-Volker Staub were also alleged to have been involved.^[13] She was initially held in a prison in Vechta.^[14]

Klette lived in Kreuzberg. She was believed to hold an Italian passport. She had a public Facebook account, to which she had uploaded photos of herself.^[15]

Her photo as "Claudia Ivone"^[16] in a capoeira club in Kreuzberg was possibly found by Khesrau Behroz [de] and Bellingcat researcher^[17] Michael Colborne,^[18][19] using the face biometrics software PimEyes^[20][19] for the Legion: Most Wanted podcast.^[21][22] The police are not permitted under German law to use face recognition software.^[23]

The trial of Klette began on 25 March 2025 in Celle. It is intended to be moved to Verden after a riding arena there has been rebuilt, to meet authorities' demands regarding size and security that had not been met by the existing mid-level court ( Landgericht) building.^[14]

Investigation

Klette has made no statements about the allegations made against her or about the RAF comrades.^[24]

Media coverage

The Lower Saxon authorities gave a live press conference announcing the arrest of the former terrorist, who had been wanted for 30 years. Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) spoke of a "milestone" in German crime history.^[20]

Petra Terhoeven, a historian specialised in the impact of left-wing terrorism on German society, criticised the "hype" around the arrest of Klette and the coverage of the RAF in general, and also asked for the RAF not to be lionised and its victims to be respected.^[25]