Capturing West Germany's Clyde

COME out," shouted the policeman through a loudspeaker. "Your chances are zero." The defiant answer from the men trapped in a garage in a residential section of Frankfurt last week was a hail of gunfire. The police, supported by a lumbering armored car, poured bullets and tear-gas canisters into the building. Then, after there were screams from the garage, the police commanded the outlaws to take off their clothes and come out one by one. Clad only in dark shorts, the first to surrender was Holger Meins, 30 (left), a key member of the notorious terrorist gang bossed by West Germany's "Bonnie und Clyde"--former Journalist Ulrike Meinhof, 37, and Student Revolutionary Andreas Baader, 29 (TIME, June 5). After a second man also surrendered, police rushed the garage, where they found a big prize. Baader was lying on the floor with a bullet wound in his left thigh (center, right). As he was carried to an ambulance, where he was stripped naked to discourage an escape attempt, Baader screamed, "You pigs!"

The arrests capped the largest man hunt in West Germany's postwar history. Tens of thousands of police have been combing the country for the terrorists, who have brought West Germany to the edge of hysteria. In the previous two weeks alone, the Bonnie und Clyde gang is believed to have been responsible for six major bombings, including two at U.S. Army installations that killed four U.S. servicemen and injured 41 persons. Modeling themselves on Uruguay's Tupamaro guerrillas, the gang, which numbered about 25 at its zenith, has engaged in a string of brazen bank robberies, car thefts and shoot-outs with police during the past two years. The motive is political. Through acts of violence, the gang seeks to overthrow West German society and drive the U.S. military presence from the country. Now only three important members of the gang remain at large--Bonnie and two of her girls.

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