In 1977, a series of terrorist assaults masterminded by the Red Army Faction (RAF) hit West Germany. Left-wing terrorism, culminating in the abduction of industrial leader Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the Lufthansa airplane Landshut, paralyzed public life and initiated an identity crisis that brought a young West German democracy to its breaking point. In the aftermath, German filmmakers from Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Reinhard Hauff to Margarethe von Trotta reflected on this situation in numerous films. In recent years, a younger generation of filmmakers such as Andres Veiel and Christian Petzold has returned to examine the traumatic events of the fateful German Autumn.