Killing of Benno Ohnesorg
Benno Ohnesorg (German pronunciation: [ˈbɛno ˈʔoːnəzɔɐ̯k]; 15 October 1940 – 2 June 1967)[1] was a West German university student killed by a policeman during a demonstration in West Berlin. His death spurred the growth of the left-wing German student movement.
Benno Ohnesorg
15 October 1940
2 June 1967 (aged 26)
Student
Re-investigation[edit]
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.[4][7][8] The new information was based on documents discovered in the Stasi archives.[4] Initial reports indicated that the archives contained no evidence that Kurras was acting under Stasi orders when he shot Ohnesorg.[5][9]
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.[10] 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.[10]
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.[11]