Benno Ohnesorg (German pronunciation: [ˈbɛno ˈʔoːnəzɔɐ̯k], October 15, 1940 – June 2, 1967) was a German university student killed by a policeman during a demonstration in West Berlin.
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On June 2, 1967, Ohnesorg participated in a protest held near the Deutsche Oper, aimed against the state visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was attending a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Deutsche Oper that night. It was the first political demonstration Ohnesorg had ever taken part in.
The protest turned violent after provocations by the Shah's agents and the police's overreacting. Demonstrators were then dispersed into the side streets. In the confusion in the courtyard of Krumme Strasse 66, Ohnesorg was then shot by plain-clothes police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras. Ohnesorg died before he could be operated on in the hospital. Kurras was cleared of all charges in two separate trials.[1]
More than forty years later, it was revealed that Kurras was an undercover agent of the East German secret police Stasi, and a long-time member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the East-German ruling Communist party; however, the motive behind Kurras' act remains unclear.[2][3][4] The survived Stasi archives contain no evidence that Kurras was acting under their orders when he shot Ohnesorg.[5][6]
Ohnesorg was a student of Romance and German studies. He was married and his wife was pregnant with their first child.
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 and partly radicalised itself after Ohnesorg's death influenced a large number of German politicians who were in their teens and twenties at the time.
A monument next to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which was designed by Austrian sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka, serves as a memorial for the killing. In December 2008, municipal authorities inaugurated an official memorial panel on the sidewalk in front of the house where Ohnesorg was shot. The panel is in German and English (see external links below). [1]
In Ohnesorg's hometown of Hanover, a bridge over the Ihme river is named after him.
The introduction of the 2008 film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex shows Ohnesorg's death (he is played by Martin Glade).