A story appeared recently in The New York Times, and the revelation shook Germans to the core. It tells of an incident that took place in 1967, when an unarmed left-wing student demonstrator, one Benno Ohnesorg, was shot and killed by a West German police officer, Karl-Heinz Kurras. It had a lot to do with the German Left’s turn to violence, and to the formation of the ultra-radical Red Army Faction, also known as the Beider-Meinhoff gang. Arguing that the democratic West German state had become a “pre-fascist state,” the murder was used to rationalize the turn to terror as a tactic. The violent New Left in Germany was akin to our own Weather Underground on steroids.Â
It turns out that German researchers, examining the Stasi files- the Stasi was the Stalinist East German regime’s secret police- found out that Kurras, the policeman, was in reality a member of the East German Communist Party and even more importantly, a secret member of the Stasi who had infiltrated the West German police. Â
As the Times story makes clear, “it was 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.” The shooting, after all, was the excuse for the movement’s turn to violence, since to them it proved that West Germany was not a democracy, but an unjust fascist state that permitted no dissent. Later, when the terror became extreme and regular, and the West German government passed laws to protect itself, the Left in America vigorously protested their measures as unnecessary and argued, like their left-wing German counterparts, that the West German government had become authoritarian and anti-democratic.
Yet, the supposed fascist cop was in fact a committed Marxist and Communist, ideologically aligned to the politics of the young man he killed. It raises the possibility that the killing of young  Ohensorg was in fact an act meant by the Stasi to destabilize the West German government, and to provoke precisely the outcome that took place. Was he an agent-provocateur, who shot and killed on the order given by Erich Mielke, the head of the Stasi?
As for Kurras, now in his 80′s, he is unrepentant and unashamed. He readily admits to being both a Communist and Stasi agent, but claims that the shooting- he shot him in the back of his head- was accidental. And the young dead man became West Germany’s first post-war martyr—and a symbol of a fight of the young for more freedom.
At the same time, the German New Left went on a virtual rampage-of kidnappings, murders and bombings- all in the name of justice, Revolution and anti-fascism. Their allies included Palestinian terrorists, and they aligned themselves with the newly formed Palestine Liberation Organization, and even supported the skyjacking of an El Al flight by Idi Amin, who was prepared to execute all Jewish passengers.
Until we find out the intentions of the Stasi, if the material can indeed be found in its files, we will not know whether the shooting was assigned by the organization, or indeed was carried out at the moment by Kurras acting on his own. For now, it is enough that we have learned that the supposed fascist policeman was in fact an ally of the extreme leftists in West Germany, and that the murder he committed that galvanized the radical extremists was carried out by one of their own comrades.
Ion Mihai Pacepa has written Programmed To Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, The Soviet KGB, And The Kennedy Assassination. This work has not convinced me to abandon Gerald Posner’s seemingly far better argument that the former Marine alone murdered our American president. Still, Michael Ledeen provided it with favorable advanced praise. The new developments in Germany have encouraged me to give Pacepa’s book another look.
The odds are that James Earl Ray, who probably received support from some wealthy white racists, murdered Martin Luther King. But could a committed Communist have assassinated him? MLK was no longer among the top ten most admired Americans. His popularity was most assuredly on the decline. Too many people thought that King was getting a bit too goofy regarding his economic thinking and the alleged racist war in Vietnam. There is little doubt but that the famous civil rights leader was worth more to the radical leftists as a dead martyr than an alive has-been. I concede the theory is weak—but that’s also what most would have said only a short time ago concerning the now revealed Stasi agent.
“Stasi files” – I’d think these operations’ records were purged.
Regarding Pacepa, yes – I personally am pretty convinced. The fact that Oswald spent 2 unaccounted-for years inside the USSR is enough for me. The story of de Mohrenschild as a KGB Illegal makes perfect sense as well. And then of course there’s the Nosenko/Golitsyn case…
Soon, but probably too late, the USSR and its methods will become a public interest, and the entire history of the 20th century will be completely rewritten. But, probably too late, probably not until the Boomers are torn and frayed and gone. This is a great project for conservatives to engage in, probably the greatest, since without Leninism “liberalism” would probably still just be Liberalism.
We should also not forget Claire Sterling’s 1983 book, The Time Of The Assassins. The blurb on the front of the book exclaims that she is “The journalist who first brought the (Soviet) plot to kill the pope into the open now brings us the inside story she alone is qualified to tell!” Many thought that Sterling may have a few screws looses when she first broached her theory. The evidence acquired over the years seems to vindicate her charges.
Dave, Sterling was quite well informed, but the left did not want to believe facts, they were an OJ Simpson jury. The Stazi and the rest were KGB controlled and the Greek, Italian German gangs were well set up long before the “convenient” photo-ops that the left accepted as justification for violence. If the media and left did not really know that Sterling was connected, truthful and well informed, why was she attacked as a loon as she was?