"They thought of freedom and fell into extreme unfreedom." This refers to Astrid Proll, who in 1968 joined Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, and for whom life in illegality was initially a liberating escape. And to Katharina de Fries, who co-founded children's shops in Berlin in 1968, wrote radio plays and children's books, and was arrested in 1980 at the age of 46, a mother of five, during a robbery of a money courier. Beyond Germany's borders, both begin a new life. Ulrike Edschmid has written the largely unknown life stories of two women who were branded in public with the term "terrorist." With a sympathetic yet distanced perspective of a contemporary, she describes childhood and youth during the war and post-war years and uncovers experiences that explain the step into the subversive movement.