You are referencing, of course, the infamous Stammheim "death night" in which following the rescue of German hostages on a hijacked plane in the dead of night in Mogadishu by the German GSG-9 anti-terror squad.

Red Army Faction leaders Andreas Baader killed himself with a smuggled gun, Jan-Carl Raspe killed himself with a DIFFERENT smuggled gun, Gudrun Ensslin hung herself from her cell window from a speaker wire, and Irmgard Moeller stabbed herself in the chest with a smuggled bread knife.

At the time of the death they were (and continue to be) extremely controversial. The prison block where they were housed was a segregated block, described as the most secure prison block in the world. Visitors had to undergo lengthy searches. The prisoners were not supposed to be able to communicate with each other during the night.

What was revealed to have happened was that lawyers had smuggled the guns to Baader and his comrades. Most of the smuggling happened during the historic trial of the leadership of the group. Because of concerns about security during the lengthy trial, the German government built a courthouse right on the grounds of Stuttgart's Stammheim Prison. The trial continued over the better part of two years. Lawyers were only given cursory searches for the trial, and they were allowed to interact with their clients, share papers, etc. The guns were smuggled while they were sharing papers during the trial.

Most of the lawyers were NOT working in cahoots with the group; they were simply there to provide a decent defense. But a few others were secretly members of the Red Army Faction; and were passing messages to comrades on the outside, smuggling weapons etc.

The government allowed the prisoners to expand they size of their cells at one point, and even allowed them to perform some of the work (Baader had almost 1000 books in his cell and needed more room). During this work the guns were hidden into the walls; waiting for retrieval.

I am not certain, but I think there may have actually been a third gun as well, which remained hidden.

The prisoners also had obtained a secret radio, and they converted their small hi-fi players to a rudimentary communications system so they could talk to each other in the night (using the electrical wires between cells; which was turned off during the night). This system allowed them to learn of the successful rescue of the hostages from the hijacked plane (they plane was hijacked in an attempt to secure their freedom) and the system allowed them to discuss their suicide pact and put it into action.

As I mentioned earlier this was, and is, highly contentious in Germany. Broadly, if you were (and are) a leftist, it is an article of faith that the German authorities murdered the trio. (And is is actually illegal to publicly state that they were murdered by the government; a relative of a later member of the RAF was fined, I believe, about 8000 dollars for lodging that accusation.)

Though there are still unanswered questions (how did the guards on duty not hear the gunshots, and others), I believe that the facts of the case clearly support the official German explanation.

By far the best work about this (at least until my book comes out!) is Stefan Aust's "Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex". In the initial printing in 1988 he doesn't actually say it was suicide, but he leaves little doubt that it was the likely scenario. But the time he updated the book five years ago there was no doubt in his mind; he clearly states they were suicides.

I cannot remember his name right now, but one of their lawyers WAS tried for smuggling guns to Baader et all and was convicted.

For more info, here's the page on my site listing all the posts the mention "death night" : http://www.baader-meinhof.com/tag/death-night/