Benno Ohnesorg

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Benno Ohnesorg (/ˈbɛnoː ˈoːʰnəzɔɐk/, October 15, 1940 – June 2, 1967) was a German university student killed by a police officer on June 2, 1967, during a demonstration in Berlin against the visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to Germany. It was the first political demonstration that the married student (of Romance and German literature and culture studies) attended as part of the German student movement.

His death served as a rallying point for the left wing, and the Movement 2 June group was named after the day of his death. The left-wing student movement of the late 1960s that swelled after Benno Ohnesorg's death influenced a large number of German politicians who were in their teens and twenties at the time.^{[citation needed]} It has been viewed by many as the second-most influential event in Germany during the period of East and West Germany, second only to the construction of the Berlin Wall.^{[citation needed]}

A monument in Berlin memorializes Benno Ohnesorg's death, and in his hometown of Hanover a bridge over the Ihme river is named after him.