[4][5] Formed in the early 1970s from networks of independent militant groups in West Germany, such as the Autonomen movement and the feminist Rote Zora, the Revolutionary Cells became known to the general public in the wake of the hijacking of an Air France airliner to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976.

The Air France hijacking ended with Operation Entebbe, the Israeli rescue raid and the killing of two of Revolutionary Cells' founding members, Wilfried Böse (known as Boni), and Brigitte Kuhlmann.

[citation needed] Prior to the Air France hijacking, members of the later Revolutionary Cells took part in bombings of the premises of ITT in Berlin and Nuremberg, and the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in Karlsruhe.

In a pamphlet published in December 1991, the Revolutionary Cells attempted a critical review of their anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist campaign during the 1970s and 1980s, with particular emphasis on the ill-fated Air France hijacking and its much publicised segregation of Jewish and non-Jewish passengers.

The antisemitism evident in the Entebbe hijacking had become the focus of long-running internal arguments during which one of the Revolutionary Cells members, Hans-Joachim Klein, eventually left the movement.