Stasi spy 'fired shot that changed Germany'

The Literature student Benno Ohnesorg became a martyr for West Germany's radical left when he was shot by a policeman in 1967. For those who looked over the Berlin Wall to East Germany as the epitome of good governance, the killing symbolised everything that was wrong with their country – corruption, self-complacency and an inability to deal with the crimes of the Nazis.


Some called it the "shot that changed the republic" and it would end up being used to justify the violent campaigns waged by leftist radical groups like the Baader-Meinhof.

But now history faces a major rewrite. The policeman who fired the fatal shot was not the typical West German policeman and fascist villain the left loved to hate, but was in fact working as a spy for the Stasi, East Germany's secret police force.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/stasi-spy-fired-shot-that-changed-germany-1691833.html