The legacy of Germany’s student protests in 1968

IT RESEMBLES just another Berlin courtyard—some straggly bushes and a bike rack—but Krumme Strasse 66 can claim to be a birthplace of today’s Germany. It was 1967; the Shah of Iran was at a performance of “The Magic Flute” at the nearby Opera; crowds of protesters had been forced into side streets; a shot rang out. Benno Ohnesorg, a 26-year-old, lay bleeding on the ground, his head cradled by another student in a photo that shocked the young Federal Republic and radicalised the movement for the demonstrations that swept German universities over the following year. Ohnesorg’s killer had been an unmarked police officer, later acquitted. This convinced protesters that, long after 1945, authoritarian violence still lurked in German society.