Killing of Benno Ohnesorg
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Benno Ohnesorg (Template:IPA; 15 October 1940 – 2 June 1967)<ref name="Hannover">Böttcher, Dirk (2002). "Ohnesorg, Benno" Template:In lang, in: Hannoversches biographisches Lexikon: von den Anfängen bis in die Gegenwart. Hannover: Schlütersche. p. 275.</ref> was a West German university student who was fatally shot in the back of the head by policeman Karl-Heinz Kurras during a demonstration in West Berlin. His death spurred the growth of the left-wing West German student movement.
Incident
Protest
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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.<ref name="Berlin">"Gedenktafeln für Benno Ohnesorg Template:Webarchive" [Memorial plaques for Benno Ohnesorg] Template:In lang. 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.</ref><ref name="Rethmann">Rethmann, Petra (Winter 2006). "On Militancy, Sort Of". Cultural Critique. Vol. 62. pp. 67–91; here: p. 75. Template:Doi. Retrieved 1 June 2017 via Project Muse database.</ref> It was the first political demonstration in which Ohnesorg had ever taken part.Template:Citation needed
Violence and shooting
The protest turned violent after pro-Shah demonstrators, including agents of the Shah's intelligence service,<ref name="Berlin"/> began battling with students and the police overreacted, employing brutal tactics in their attempts to control the crowd.<ref name="Spiegel20090522">"Stasi Archive Surprise: East German Spy Shot West Berlin Martyr Template:Webarchive". Spiegel Online International. 22 May 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref> In the ensuing tumult, demonstrators dispersed into the side streets.<ref name="Berlin"/> In the courtyard of Krumme Straße 66, Ohnesorg was beaten by several police officers; with his hands raised, he was then shot in the back of the head by police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras.<ref name="Berlin"/> Police temporarily prevented medical treatment; Ohnesorg died in an ambulance before reaching a hospital. Hospital records were falsified and an unsuccessful attempt was made to physically cover up the bullet wound; however, it was discovered the next day in an official autopsy.<ref name="Berlin"/> Kurras stood trial the same year and was acquitted, on 27 November 1967.<ref name="Berlin"/><ref name="Rethmann"/> Ohnesorg was a student of Romance and German studies. He was married and his wife was pregnant with their first child.<ref name="Kulish">Kulish, Nicholas (26 May 2009). "Spy Fired Shot That Changed West Germany"; Template:Webarchive. The New York Times. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref>
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.<ref name="Berman">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 Dissent Magazine; Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref>
Re-investigation
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.<ref name="Spiegel20090522"/><ref>Küpper, Mechthild (21 May 2009). "Stasi-Mitarbeiter erschoss Benno Ohnesorg"; Template:Webarchive Template:In lang. Frankfurter Allgemeine. faz.net. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref><ref>"1968 Revisited: The Truth about the Gunshot that Changed Germany"; Template:Webarchive. Spiegel Online International. 28 May 2009. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref> The new information was based on documents discovered in the Stasi archives.<ref name="Spiegel20090522"/> Initial reports indicated that the archives contained no evidence that Kurras was acting under Stasi orders when he shot Ohnesorg.<ref name="Kulish"/><ref>Beeg, Rena; Betz, Malte; Hellwig, Marcus; Nachtsheim, Katharina; and Uhlenbroich, Burkhard (10 July 2009). "Karl-Heinz Kurras: Gab Mielke ihm de Schießbefehl?"; Template:Webarchive Template:In lang. Bild. bild.de. Retrieved 1 June 2017. With photo gallery of the event as well as of Kurras and Ohnesorg.</ref>
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.<ref name="FrRundschau">"Fall Ohnesorg zu den Akten gelegt" Template:In lang. Frankfurter Rundschau. fr.de. 2 November 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref> 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.<ref name="FrRundschau"/>
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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Legacy
Ohnesorg's death served as a rallying point for the left, and spurred the growth of the left-wing German student movement.<ref name="Kulish"/> The Movement 2 June group, founded around 1971, was named for the day of his death.<ref name="Spiegel20090522"/><ref>Rethmann (2006), pp. 76, 87.</ref>
Student activist Rudi Dutschke led student protest actions in the period following Ohnesorg's death.<ref>"West Berlin Gunman Wounds Leader of Left-Wing Students"; Template:Webarchive Template:Subscription. The 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."</ref> 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",<ref name="Berman"/> a formulation that he later retracted.<ref>DeGroot, Gerard J. (1998). Student Protest: The Sixties and After. London: Routledge. pp. 104–105.</ref><ref>Ingram, David (2010). Habermas: Introduction and Analysis. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. p. 8, footnote 17.</ref>
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.<ref name="Kulish"/><ref> Horn, Bernd; Kiras James D.; Spencer, Emily (eds.). The (In)visible Hand: Strategic Sabotage Case Studies, p. 257 (Endnotes: 281). Ottawa: Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, 2021 Template:ISBN</ref>
A monument next to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was designed by Austrian sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, serves as a memorial for the killing.<ref name="Berlin"/> In December 2008, municipal authorities inaugurated an official memorial panel on the sidewalk in front of the house where Ohnesorg was shot,<ref name="Berlin"/> and in Ohnesorg's hometown of Hanover, a bridge over the Ihme river is named after him.<ref name="Hannover"/>
In film
The opening scene of the 2008 film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex shows Ohnesorg's death,<ref>Kaplan, Fred (12 August 2009). "A Match That Burned the Germans"; Template:Webarchive [review of the film The Baader Meinhof Complex]. The New York Times. Retrieved 1 June 2017.</ref> with the role of Ohnesorg played by Martin Glade.
See also
References
External links
- Photograph of Benno Ohnesorg's death (Deutsches Historisches Museum)
- Short video about Ohnesorg's death, in English, with contemporary footage, in The Berlin Wall: A Multimedia History, RBB (Berlin-Brandenburg broadcaster)