Killing of Benno Ohnesorg

File:Ludwig Binder Haus der Geschichte Studentenrevolte 1968 2001 03 0275.0143 (16891731039).jpg

On 2 June 1967, Ohnesorg participated in a student protest held near the Deutsche Oper in opposition to the state visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was attending a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper that night."[http://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenburg-wilmersdorf/bezirk/gedenktafeln/ohnesorg.html Gedenktafeln für Benno Ohnesorg] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218070415/http://www.berlin.de/imperia/md/content/bacharlottenburg-wilmersdorf/bezirk/bennoohnesorginfotafel.pdf |date=18 February 2012 }}" [Memorial plaques for Benno Ohnesorg] (in German). Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. BerlinOnline Stadtportal (official Berlin website). berlin.de. Note: Includes a downloadable PDF document "Infotafel zur Erschießung Benno Ohnesorgs am 2. Juni 1967" with text in both German and English. Retrieved 1 June 2017.Rethmann, Petra (Winter 2006). "On Militancy, Sort Of". Cultural Critique. Vol. 62. pp. 67–91; here: p. 75. {{doi|10.1353/cul.2006.0008}}. Retrieved 1 June 2017 via Project Muse database. It was the first political demonstration in which Ohnesorg had ever taken part.{{Citation needed|date=June 2019}}

The protest turned violent after pro-Shah demonstrators, including agents of the Shah's intelligence service, began battling with students and the police overreacted, employing brutal tactics in their attempts to control the crowd."[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/stasi-archive-surprise-east-german-spy-shot-west-berlin-martyr-a-626275.html Stasi Archive Surprise: East German Spy Shot West Berlin Martyr] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170603030348/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/stasi-archive-surprise-east-german-spy-shot-west-berlin-martyr-a-626275.html |date=3 June 2017}}". Spiegel Online International. spiegel.de. 22 May 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2017. In the ensuing tumult, demonstrators dispersed into the side streets. In the courtyard of Krumme Straße 66, Ohnesorg was then shot in the back of the head by police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras. Ohnesorg died before he could be treated at a hospital. Kurras stood trial the same year and was acquitted, on 27 November 1967. Ohnesorg was a student of Romance and German studies. He was married and his wife was pregnant with their first child.Kulish, Nicholas (26 May 2009). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/europe/27germany.html Spy Fired Shot That Changed West Germany] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224222744/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/europe/27germany.html |date=24 February 2017 }}". New York Times. nytimes.com. Retrieved 1 June 2017.

A week after Ohnesorg's death, a funeral caravan accompanied his coffin as it was transported from West Berlin through checkpoints in East Germany to his hometown of Hanover in West Germany, where he was buried.Berman, Russell A. (Summer 2008). "From 'Left-Fascism' to Campus Anti-Semitism: Radicalism as Reaction". Democratiya. pp. 14–30; here: pp. 15–16. Link to PDF available via [https://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya_article/from-left-fascism-to-campus-anti-semitism-radicalism-as-reaction Dissent Magazine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823063237/https://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya_article/from-left-fascism-to-campus-anti-semitism-radicalism-as-reaction |date=23 August 2017 }}. Retrieved 1 June 2017.

More than forty years later, in 2009, it was revealed that at the time of the events Kurras had been an informal collaborator of the East German secret police Stasi and a long-time member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the ruling East German Communist party; however, the motive behind Kurras' act remains unclear.Küpper, Mechthild (21 May 2009). "[https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/aktenfund-in-der-birthler-behoerde-stasi-mitarbeiter-erschoss-benno-ohnesorg-1797216.html Stasi-Mitarbeiter erschoss Benno Ohnesorg] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808205122/https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/aktenfund-in-der-birthler-behoerde-stasi-mitarbeiter-erschoss-benno-ohnesorg-1797216.html |date=8 August 2020 }}" (in German). Frankfurter Allgemeine. faz.net. Retrieved 1 June 2017."[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/1968-revisited-the-truth-about-the-gunshot-that-changed-germany-a-627342.html 1968 Revisited: The Truth about the Gunshot that Changed Germany] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170605030156/http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/1968-revisited-the-truth-about-the-gunshot-that-changed-germany-a-627342.html |date=5 June 2017 }}". Spiegel Online International. spiegel.de. 28 May 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2017. The new information was based on documents discovered in the Stasi archives. Initial reports indicated that the archives contained no evidence that Kurras was acting under Stasi orders when he shot Ohnesorg.Beeg, Rena; Betz, Malte; Hellwig, Marcus; Nachtsheim, Katharina; and Uhlenbroich, Burkhard (10 July 2009). "[http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2009/05/24/karl-heinz-kurras-schiessbefehl/benno-ohnesorg-stasi.html Karl-Heinz Kurras: Gab Mielke ihm de Schießbefehl?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090527100942/http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2009/05/24/karl-heinz-kurras-schiessbefehl/benno-ohnesorg-stasi.html |date=27 May 2009 }}" (in German). Bild. bild.de. Retrieved 1 June 2017. With photo gallery of the event as well as of Kurras and Ohnesorg.

On the basis of the 2009 revelations about Kurras, the German prosecutor's office initiated a new investigation, in order to clarify definitively whether there was any evidence that the killing of Ohnesorg could have been ordered by authorities in East Berlin; in November 2011, that investigation was officially closed with the determination that there was not enough evidence to justify reopening the case."[http://www.fr.de/politik/verfahren-gegen-kurras-eingestellt-fall-ohnesorg-zu-den-akten-gelegt-a-1212754 Fall Ohnesorg zu den Akten gelegt]" (in German). Frankfurter Rundschau. fr.de. 2 November 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2017. The prosecutor's office noted that, due to the passage of time, many participants in the trial were either no longer alive or otherwise unable to provide reliable testimony, and that documents relevant to the case were evidently among those destroyed by the East German foreign intelligence service in the interval between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990.

Following up in January 2012, Der Spiegel magazine reported that research carried out by federal prosecutors, as well as by the magazine, found that the shooting was not in self-defense as always claimed by Kurras and that it was certainly premeditated. Newly examined film and photographic evidence also implicated fellow officers and superiors, demonstrating that the police covered up the truth in subsequent investigations and trials. Additionally, medical staff who carried out the autopsy on Ohnesorg were ordered to falsify their report. However, the Spiegel report indicated that the new information was still unlikely to be sufficient for the case to be reopened.{{cite news |url=http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,810877,00.html |title=Police Covered Up Truth Behind Infamous Student Shooting |publisher=Spiegel Online International. spiegel.de |date=23 January 2012 |accessdate=25 February 2012 |archive-date=4 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220804204757/https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,810877,00.html |url-status=live }}

File:Tod des Demonstranten.jpg; Location: Deutsche Oper Berlin, forecourt]]

Ohnesorg's death served as a rallying point for the left, and spurred the growth of the left-wing German student movement. The Movement 2 June group, founded around 1971, was named for the day of his death.Rethmann (2006), pp. 76, 87.

Student activist Rudi Dutschke led student protest actions in the period following Ohnesorg's death."[https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/12/archives/west-berlin-gunman-wounds-leader-of-leftwing-students-student.html West Berlin Gunman Wounds Leader of Left-Wing Students] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180729081759/https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/12/archives/west-berlin-gunman-wounds-leader-of-leftwing-students-student.html |date=29 July 2018 }}" (preview only; subscription required). New York Times. 12 April 1968. "It was Mr. Dutschke who led the Berlin students in their activities against the authorities following a shooting incident [in June 1967] in which a policeman shot and killed Benno Ohnesorg, another West Berlin student." Just after Ohnesorg's burial in Hanover, Dutschke, speaking at "The University and Democracy: Conditions and Organization of Resistance" conference held at the university, clashed with philosophy professor Jürgen Habermas over the future of the movement: Dutschke advocated radical, possibly illegal and violent action, although his first proposal was a peaceful sit-down strike. The conflict prompted Habermas, who had urged a more moderate approach, famously to characterize Dutschke's ideology as amounting to "left fascism", a formulation that he later retracted.DeGroot, Gerard J. (1998). [https://books.google.com/books?id=LEygBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 Student Protest: The Sixties and After]. London: Routledge. pp. 104–105.Ingram, David (2010). [https://books.google.com/books?id=_MPXJ6hJPa0C&pg=PA8 Habermas: Introduction and Analysis]. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 8, footnote 17.

The student movement that swelled and, in part, became radicalised in the late 1960s, after Ohnesorg's death, influenced many future German politicians who were in their teens and twenties at the time. Horn, Bernd; Kiras James D.; Spencer, Emily (eds.). [https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2022/mdn-dnd/D2-440-2021-eng.pdf The (In)visible Hand: Strategic Sabotage Case Studies], p. 257 (Endnotes: 281). Ottawa: Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, 2021 {{ISBN|978-0-660-38276-0}}

A monument next to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was designed by Austrian sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, serves as a memorial for the killing. In December 2008, municipal authorities inaugurated an official memorial panel on the sidewalk in front of the house where Ohnesorg was shot, and in Ohnesorg's hometown of Hanover, a bridge over the Ihme river is named after him.

The opening scene of the 2008 film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex shows Ohnesorg's death,Kaplan, Fred (12 August 2009). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/movies/16kapl.html A Match That Burned the Germans] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104053732/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/movies/16kapl.html |date=4 January 2018 }}" [review of the film The Baader Meinhof Complex]. New York Times. nytimes.com. Retrieved 1 June 2017. with the role of Ohnesorg played by Martin Glade.

• West German student movement

{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/foto-tod-benno-ohnesorg.html Photograph of Benno Ohnesorg's death] (Deutsches Historisches Museum)
• [http://www.the-berlin-wall.com/videos/the-death-of-benno-ohnesorg-574/ Short video about Ohnesorg's death], in English, with contemporary footage, in The Berlin Wall: A Multimedia History, RBB (Berlin-Brandenburg broadcaster)

{{Commons category|Benno Ohnesorg}}

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Category:1940 births

Category:1967 deaths

Category:Deaths by person in Germany

Category:False flag operations

Category:German anti-war activists

Category:Germany–Iran relations

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Category:People from Hanover

Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Germany

Category:Police misconduct in Germany