Stasi spy shot West German protester in inflammatory 1967 killing

[Soviet]

But when the Berufdemonstranten made a career of insulting, protesting and demonstrating against one side while, conversely, taking absolutely no action toward the other, it strained their credibility.

George, what could they do? Go to Marienborn and ask for visas to protest in East Germany? I think they only protest directly to the military sites they could reach.

I didn't know about the Russian guard and the 2 boys shot. Was this incident widely known in the former East Germany? If not, I can understand why there was no protest.

[ehrentitle]

It's also an article in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/wo...many.html?_r=1

[ehrentitle]

George, what could they do? Go to Marienborn and ask for visas to protest in East Germany? I think they only protest directly to the military sites they could reach.

I didn't know about the Russian guard and the 2 boys shot. Was this incident widely known in the former East Germany? If not, I can understand why there was no protest.

Soviet - I think you have just reinforced George's point. No protest against Soviet SS-20's or for that matter any Soviet led nuclear or biological programs would have been allowed in the DDR, by either East or West Germans. Like everything else, the GDR Peace Council was an organ of the Party/State and was focused on the despicable crimes of the West.

[George Lepre]

George, what could they do? Go to Marienborn and ask for visas to protest in East Germany? I think they only protest directly to the military sites they could reach.

I didn't know about the Russian guard and the 2 boys shot. Was this incident widely known in the former East Germany? If not, I can understand why there was no protest.

Hi Soviet -

When people disagree with the policies of various countries and are unable to conduct direct protests, they often stage demonstrations at that particular country's embassies or consulates. For example, large anti-war protests took place near American diplomatic facilities around the world during the Vietnam era. On the other hand, when the Soviets deployed their missiles to the DDR and when the two boys were shot, no demonstrators appeared at Soviet embassies in Bonn or anywhere else in Western Europe.

(Unfortunately, embassies and consulates have also served as targets to violent activists. A Cold War example is the bombing campaign that was conducted against Cuban diplomatic centers in New York, Montreal, and elsewhere during the 1980s by the "Omega 7" anti-Castro group.)

I heard about the two boys being killed several months after the incident from a West German civilian. The incident occurred at Fuerstenberg (and not Bischofswerda as I wrote in my earlier post) and seems to have occured on or about 11 June 1987. The incident is also covered in the excellent documentary film Roter Stern ueber Deutschland. This documentary is a must-see for those interested in GSFG.

George

[ehrentitle]

Magazine says Kurras reported Stasi defectors to East Germany

Published: 6 Jun 09 11:15 CET
The Local
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090606-19751.html

Heinz Kurras, the recently exposed Stasi spy and former West German police officer, provided explosive information on defectors and prisoners to his East German masters, according to news magazine Der Spiegel.

The magazine reported that new files showed that Kurras worked for the East German secret police, the Stasi from 1955 to 1967. In that time, Kurras delivered sensitive information in hundreds of cases, including 24 arrested Stasi spies as well as least five cases of “deserters from the East German ministry for state security.”

The report said that in January 1967, Kurras betrayed 22-year-old West Berliner Bernd Ohnesorge who spied for the Stasi under the codename “Urban” but later revealed himself to British intelligence.

Kurras reported the defector to the Stasi and led the investigation into Ohnesorge. The magazine said that when Ohnesorge was arrested in Bulgaria for spying for the CIA, the Bulgarians received information from the Stasi on Ohnesorge based on Kurras’ investigations. That led to Ohnesorge being sentenced to 12 years in a labour camp by a secret Bulgarian military tribunal.

Ohnesorge died in a Bulgarian prison in 1987. According to the Bulgarian authorities, he set himself on fire.

Last month, new files showed that Kurras, the former West Berlin police officer who shot the young student protester Benno Ohnesorg in 1967 in Berlin, was actually a spy working for East Germany's secret police, the Stasi.

The shooting took place during a violent anti-Iran demonstration in front of the German Opera House in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. The killing made Ohnesorg a leftist martyr and fuelled explosive student protests against what they saw as a repressive West German state in the following years.

For years, Kurras deceived his colleagues in the West Berlin police service and the German public.

Kurras, now 81 and living in Berlin’s Spandau district, has been twice acquitted of negligent homicide in Ohnesorg’s death, once soon after the shooting in 1967 and again in 1970.

Kurras’ case has sparked a renewed debate in Germany about how far the Stasi infiltrated West German institutions

[Gene T]

Ohnesorg, Ohnesorge? Interesting coincidence, or are these fairly common last names? Next we'll learn that Kurras wrote a speeding ticket to a tourist named Sanssouci in 1967, who was spying for the French...

Gene T