Word: stasis
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...discovery of the new Kurras file confirms the view that the East German secret police, the Stasi, was also active in West Berlin and West Germany and had agents in important positions, as well as being active of course in East Germany," says Hans Altendorf, director of the Birthler Agency, which preserves the old Stasi files. "But no one would have thought that Kurras, a police officer, was also a Stasi man. It was unimaginable for us, for researchers, historians and ordinary Germans...
...According to the Birthler Agency, the Stasi surprisingly broke off contact with Kurras shortly after the shooting in 1967. In the file, the Stasi merely described the shooting as an "unlucky accident." Kurras was charged with manslaughter but acquitted in November 1967. After a successful appeal by prosecutors and the Ohnesorg family lawyer to Germany's highest civil court, Kurras was put on trial again in 1970 and acquitted anew. He carried on working as a police officer and steadfastly maintains to this day that the shooting was an accident...
...researchers who unearthed the new documents say there was no evidence in the files to suggest that Kurras was acting on direct Stasi orders to kill Ohnesorg. But the discovery that it was a Stasi spy who shot him has raised new questions about the history of the student movement. Prime among them: how might the student protest movement have developed if Germans had known at the time that Kurras was in the pay of the East German secret police? The question is all the more sensitive since that movement spawned the Red Army Faction, postwar Europe's most deadly...
...Birthler Agency has come under hefty criticism from politicians and researchers who claim that the late disclosures showed it wasn't researching the Stasi files thoroughly. "We always assumed Kurras was some kind of right-wing extremist, and now it turns out he was a Marxist," says Hugo Diederich, deputy head of the Association of Victims of Stalinism. "If we'd known that earlier, it could have changed the student protests and the course of history." Diederich advocates a thorough investigation of "all politicians, police officers and members of the intelligence services now, to see if any of them were...
...Many Germans are still determined to confront their past, and thousands have tried to get access to the files kept on them by the Stasi. According to the Birthler Agency, 87,000 applications to examine the files were submitted in 2008, fewer than the 100,000 applications that were sent in 2007. But this year's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has sparked renewed interest and heightened demand. "It's important that the Stasi files are open and there is access for victims, researchers, historians and Germans to learn about their personal histories," says Altendorf. "Many...