Benno Ohnesorg, Martyr of The Left: Turns Out Killed By Communist Agent

The Murder

The amount of criminal behavior and devastation caused by communists and their left wing allies around the globe never ceases to amaze. In this case an iconic myth of the left turns out to have been caused by a Stasi agent. The Stasi were the ruthless secret police who detailed every aspect of people's lives in East Germany. If you have seen the movie Lives of Others you know who they were.

BERLIN — It was called “the shot that changed the republic.” The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover K.G.B. officer, though the reverberations in Germany seemed to have run deeper.

“It makes a hell of a difference whether John F. Kennedy was killed by just a loose cannon running around or a Secret Service agent working for the East,” said Stefan Aust, the former editor in chief of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “I would never, never, ever have thought that this could be true.”

The revelation last week that researchers, looking into Berlin Wall deaths and East German intelligence, had stumbled across Mr. Kurras’s Stasi files raised a host of uncomfortable issues that are suddenly the subject of national debateThe revelation last week that researchers, looking into Berlin Wall deaths and East German intelligence, had stumbled across Mr. Kurras’s Stasi files raised a host of uncomfortable issues that are suddenly the subject of national debate. For the left, Mr. Kurras’s true allegiance strikes at the underpinnings of the 1968 protest movement in Germany. The killing provided the clear-cut rationale for the movement’s opposition to what its members saw as a violent, unjust state, when in fact the supposed fascist villain of leftist lore was himself a committed socialist.

The Murderer

The East German Communist Party membership card of Karl-Heinz Kurras, a former West Berlin police officer who also acted as a Stasi spy for East Germany.

By the way the Rosenberg's were guilty as well.