In the RAF attack on the Casino Building in 1972, one person was killed.
A memorial plaque, which was mounted at the entrance to the Casino Building on Westend Campus at the end of the summer semester, commemorates the victims of the terrorist attack by the Red Army Faction (RAF) on May 11, 1972. In the attack, which targeted the headquarters of the V Corps of the U.S. Army, the United States European Command and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the American officer Lieutenant Colonel Paul A. Bloomquist was killed and 13 people were injured. The explosion damaged the Casino Building and the I.G. Farben Building.
Ina Hartwig, Head of Department for Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt, and Ulrich Schielein, Vice President of Goethe University Frankfurt, presented the plaque to the public at a small ceremony on July 17, 2024. Local politician Axel Kaufmann, who had suggested the plaque to the local council, and Heidi Ramsay, representing the U.S. Consulate General, also spoke at the ceremony.
Michael Maaser, historian and the university’s archivist, described the background to the attack. The University Archive coordinated the project with the Department for Culture and Science of the City of Frankfurt and formulated the text for the plaque, which reads as follows:
In Memory of the Victims of the Attack on May 11, 1972
On this spot, the left-wing extremist Red Army Faction carried out a terrorist attack on soldiers of the V Corps of the U.S. Army, which used the former I.G. Farben premises as its headquarters. Lieutenant Colonel Paul A. Bloomquist was killed and 13 people were injured.
The attack was directed against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which the RAF for its part sought to fight by violent means.
Michael Maaser
