1967/8 in Germany: More Complicated Than Many Thought

Germany's "1968" began in June of 1967 with the killing a student-demonstrator, Benno Ohnesorg, by a West Berlin policeman. The occasion was a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran, the consequences a rapidly growing and radicalizing student movement determined to fight the "fascist" Federal Republic. Most historians link the rise of the terrorist Red Army Fraktion (RAF) directly to this event. Now it turns out that Karl-Heinz Kurass, the policeman who killed Ohnesorg, worked for the East German secret service (Stasi) and was a member of the ruling party, SED, of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). There's no evidence that he was acting on direct orders from East Berlin, but we can't be fully certain that he didn't, either. For the student-left at the time, and quite a few of their illustrous professors, the shooting was evidence of the oppressive nature of the West German state and its aggressive attitude toward dissent. Had it be known back then that Kurass worked for the German "wokers' paradise" located on the other side of the Berlin Wall, things might well have developed differently. But maybe not fundamentally. In any case, the case is an example of the extent of Stasi activities in the Federal Republic, for example its support of RAF members. Many are now arguing for more rapid and systematic work in the Stasi archives to learn more about all that, and one could argue that the role of the Stasi in the German-German relations during the Cold War remains an understudied area. The Stasi was good at what it did, even though it could not save the GDR or really destabilize the Federal Republic. About all the things it did, and with whose help in the West, we're likely to hear more in the near future.