The files of East Germany continue to reveal secrets. The NYT reveals
The killing in 1967 of an unarmed demonstrator by a police officer in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today.
Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, has upended Germany’s perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, though working for the West Berlin police, was at the time also acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany.(
For the left, Mr. Kurras’s true allegiance strikes at the underpinnings of the 1968 protest movement in Germany. The killing provided the clear-cut rationale for the movement’s opposition to what its members saw as a violent, unjust state, when in fact the supposed fascist villain of leftist lore was himself a committed socialist.
There is the sobering reminder of the Stasi infiltration of West German structures, but also the question of whether it went much deeper than has ever been uncovered.
The most insidious question raised by the revelation is whether Mr. Kurras might have been acting not only as a spy, but also as an agent provocateur, trying to destabilize West Germany.
Leon, nobody should be surprised that Kurras would be an agent provocateur; it would fit the Soviet MO perfectly. Remember, Mehmet Ali Agca (who would have assassinated JPII) had close ties to the Bulgarian secret police — and Bulgaria was the USSR’ smost reliable ally in the Warsaw Pact.