joy of life, trying everything. This gave me an inner freedom I have kept until today. And another thing I have kept: the realisation different cultures can very well live together very well,” she said.

Curious Crossover

In an ironic twist, the woman soon to be the most powerful person in Europe came to the UK at precisely the same time Astrid Proll, one of the RAF’s most prominent members, was arrested in London.

Proll had been involved in a string of high-profile acts by the group, including firebombings in Frankfurt in 1968 and a bank robbery - she was also the getaway driver for Baader when he escaped from police custody with the help of Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Ingrid Schubert and Irene Goergens in 1970.

She was arrested by policein 1971 and imprisoned, but released on health grounds and transferred to a sanatorium - she soon escaped and went underground, and arrived in the UK not long after. She married a British national and gained new identity documents, working a variety of jobs before being arrested September 1978 by Special Branch. She was detained and fought extradition, before deciding to return to West Germany in 1979 to fight her case - while eventually convicted of bank robbery and falsifying documents, as she’d spent so long in both West German and UK prisons her sentence was reduced to ‘time served’. She subsequently returned to the UK, and worked for some time as picture editor at The Independent newspaper.