Stammheim Prison (German: Justizvollzugsanstalt Stuttgart-Stammheim) is a prison in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the northern boundaries of Stuttgart in the city district of Stuttgart-Stammheim — right between fields and apartment blocks on the fringes of Stammheim. The prison was built as a supermax prison between 1959 and 1963 and taken into operation in 1964.

Stammheim Prison became famous when it housed the leading members of the Red Army Faction urban guerrilla group during their trials, as well as the courthouse in which they were tried. The section in which they were kept was specially built in 1975 and at the time recognized as one of the most secure prison blocks in the world. In spite of this, the arrested guerrillas had firearms smuggled to them.

After Ulrike Meinhof hung herself on 9 May 1976, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe reportedly committed suicide in the high security block during the night of 18 October 1977, which became known as the "Death Night" for the leaders of the Red Army Faction. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe were said to have shot themselves, whereas Gudrun Ensslin apparently chose a method of supposed suicide similar to that of Ulrike Meinhof. A fourth member, Irmgard Möller, allegedly stabbed herself four times in the chest with a stolen knife. She survived her suicide attempt and has since stated that the deaths were not suicide, but rather extrajudical killings undertaken by the German government of the time, a claim strongly denied by the German governments former and present.

Gerhard Richter (born February 9, 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.^{[citation needed]} Richter is regarded as the Top-Selling Living Artist. In 2011, Richter's works achieved prices higher than any other living artist. His works sold for more than $200 million, topping auction result totals for Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti, and Mark Rothko combined.

The son of a schoolteacher, Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden, Saxony, and grew up in Reichenau, Lower Silesia, and in Waltersdorf (Zittauer Gebirge) in the Upper Lusatian countryside. He left school after 10th grade and apprenticed as an advertising and stage-set painter, before studying at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. In 1948 he terminated the higher professional school in Zittau, and, between 1949 and 1951, was trained there in writing as well as in stage and advertising painting.^{[citation needed]} In 1950 his application for membership in the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden (Dresden University of Visual Arts, founded in 1764) was rejected.^{[citation needed]} He finally began his study at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1951. His teachers were Karl von Appen, Ulrich Lohmar and Will Grohmann.

Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing militant. She co-founded the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion) in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine Konkret. She was arrested in 1972, and eventually charged with numerous murders and the formation of a criminal association. Before the trial concluded, Meinhof was found hanged in her cell in 1976.

Ulrike Meinhof was born in 1934 in Oldenburg, Germany. In 1936, her family moved to Jena when her father, art historian Dr. Werner Meinhof, became director of the city's museum. Her father died of cancer in 1940, causing her mother to take in a boarder, Renate Riemeck, to make money. In 1946, the family moved back to Oldenburg because Jena fell under Soviet rule as a result of the Yalta agreement. Ulrike's mother, Dr. Ingeborg Meinhof, worked as a teacher after World War II and died 8 years later from cancer. Renate Riemeck took on the role of guardian for Ulrike and her elder sister.

Gudrun Ensslin (German pronunciation: [ˈɡuːdʁuːn ˈɛnsliːn]; 15 August 1940 – 18 October 1977) was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion, or RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang). After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs^{[citation needed]}. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF. She was involved in five bomb attacks, with four deaths, was arrested in 1972 and died on 18 October 1977 in what has been called Stammheim Prison's Death Night.

Ensslin, the fourth of seven children, was born in the village of Bartholomä in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Her father, Helmut, was a pastor of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Ensslin was a well-behaved child who did well at school and enjoyed working with the Evangelical Girl Scouts, and doing parish work such as organizing Bible studies. In her family, the social injustices of the world were often discussed, and Gudrun is said to have been sensitized to social problems in West Germany and the world as a whole.

Manfred Rommel, Hon. CBE (born December 24, 1928) is a German politician (CDU), who served as Lord Mayor of Stuttgart from 1974 until 1996. He is one of the most popular local politicians of the CDU.

Rommel was born in Stuttgart, the only son of WWII Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Lucia Maria Mollin. At the age of 14, he entered service in the Luftwaffe, serving at an anti-aircraft battery. Later, Manfred considered joining the Waffen SS, but his father opposed it. After his father was forced to commit suicide for his alleged complicity in the July 20 Plot, he deserted from the Wehrmacht and surrendered to General de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army.

Rommel collaborated with Basil Liddell-Hart in the publication of The Rommel Papers, a collection of diaries, letters and notes that his father wrote during and after his military campaigns. In 1947, he took his Abitur in Biberach an der Riß and went on to study law at the University of Tübingen. In 1956, he started his career by becoming a high-ranking civil servant and later state secretary in the state government of Baden-Württemberg.