Red Army Faction affiliates of the group firebombed the store and caused an estimated US$200,000 in property damage. Prominent members of the bombing included Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin, two of the founders of the Baader-Meinhof gang. The bombs detonated at midnight when no one was in the store, thus no one was injured. As the bombs ignited, Gudrun Ensslin was at a nearby payphone, yelling to the German Press Agency, "This is a political act of revenge." On 2 February 1972, the Baader-Meinhof gang bombed the West Berlin British Yacht Club. The result was the killing of Irwin Beelitz, a German boat
Red Army Faction events further catalyzed the situation. Protests turned into riots on 2 June 1967, when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, visited West Berlin. There were protesters but also hundreds of supporters of the Shah, as well as a group of fake supporters armed with wooden staves, there to disturb the normal course of the visit. These extremists beat the protesters. After a day of angry protests by exiled Iranian radical Marxists, a group widely supported by German students, the Shah visited the Berlin Opera, where a crowd of German student protesters gathered. During the opera house demonstrations, German student