Fascinating story about a West German policeman who killed Benno Ohnesorg, a left-wing protester back in the '60s. That killing (and the policeman's subsequent acquittal) ended up becoming one of the primary catalysts for the creation of the terrorist Red Army Faction.
What if everything we knew about the case was wrong?
According to new documents uncovered by two German researchers, [the policeman] Karl-Heinz -Kurras was not the "fascist" cop of popular indignation, but a longtime agent of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) and a member of the East German Communist party. [emphasis added]
[...]
While there is no evidence that Kurras acted as an agent provocateur in shooting Ohnesorg, it is doubtless true that had his political sympathies--and his covert work for the Stasi--been known in 1967, the burgeoning radical student movement would have been deprived of its most effective recruiting tool. As Bettina Roehl, the journalist daughter of terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, argued in Die Welt, the glut of post-Ohnesorg propaganda helped establish "the legend of an evil and brutal West Germany," while simultaneously minimizing the very real brutality of Communist East Germany.
Something to keep in the back of one's mind for future cases of police brutality * towards democratic protesters in Taiwan. There are some (like myself) who are fairly quick to suspect KMT orders (or more insidiously, unspoken incentives) for such conduct. Like the West Germans though, we might sometimes be looking for answers on the wrong side of the Wall. Or the Strait, as the case may be.
With regards to Kurras, there are some unsettling questions. Was he acquitted fair-and-square? Or was he, in fact, the beneficiary of a police cover-up?
If the latter, then West German society certainly paid a heavy price for that single miscarriage of justice. **
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* The two most egregious incidents within the last year have been the dislocation of a woman's finger in response to her carrying a Tibetan flag last November, and the running down of two elderly protesters at a democracy march last month. In the first case, no law enforcement officer has ever been held to account. While in the second, the driver of the police cruiser was slapped with ONE WHOLE DEMERIT on his work record.
One demerit. For driving twice the speed limit near an area in which a pre-scheduled political rally was taking place. For crashing into two senior citizens with enough force that one had to have his foot and lower leg amputated, and the other was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage.
One demerit.
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh. After all, he DID have pretty good excuse: "Those 67 and 68 year-olds darted out into traffic like a coupla GAZELLES, I tells ya !"
Who wouldn't believe a story like that?
** Not that Taiwan hasn't paid its own high price for miscarriages of justice. In reading this account of the 2-28 Massacre, it's hard not to speculate that the entire bloody business in 1947 could have been avoided if the police (Tobacco Monopoly Agents, actually) had been willing to punish four of their own for maltreating a female cigarette peddler.
But then, sometimes it's easier to mow civilians down with machine guns, than admit that you're wrong.
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