Astrid Proll

Astrid Huberta Isolde Marie Luise Hildegard Proll (born 29 May 1947) was an early member of the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang).

She was the getaway driver for Andreas Baader when he escaped from police custody with the help of Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Ingrid Schubert, Irene Goergens in 1970.

However, in Hamburg on 6 May of the same year, Proll was finally arrested after a pump attendant at a petrol station recognised her from a wanted poster and alerted the police.

Supporters suggested that the fact that she was teaching under-privileged children mechanics in a workshop in West Hampstead was a token of her political repentance and good faith.

Back in Germany, Proll's attempted murder charge was dropped when it was gathered that the state had withheld information that could have cleared her but she was still sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment on account of bank robbery and falsifying documents; however, she had already spent at least two-thirds of that time in German and English prisons and therefore was released immediately.

Proll went on to study film and photography at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and later became a picture editor for magazine and newspaper.