Police killing of Benno Ohnesorg triggered Berlin’s 1967 crackdown.

Evidence

His arrival was announced by Der Spiegel in an article headed by the final sentences of his article on tolerance, and in which Knut Nevermann, former chairman of the Students’ Union of the Free University of Berlin, was quoted as saying, Marcuse means a great deal to us. He is part of the background for what we are doing.' Shortly before, on 2 June, the student Benno Ohnesorg had been shot dead. Ohnesorg had been taking part in a demonstration against the Shah of Persia in front of the Berlin Opera. After the Shah had disappeared inside the opera house, the police dispersed the demonstrators. In an operation called Foxhunt’, Ohnesorg was shot dead by a plain-clothes policeman in the courtyard of a building. The Mayor of Berlin expressed his gratitude to the police. Further demonstrations were banned. The Springer press, which almost exclusively dominated the Berlin newspaper market, mocked the students. Police noted down the registration numbers of cars that had black ribbons attached to them. The tyres of cars with black ribbons were slashed. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2607

Categorization

• XREF: The Ohnesorg shooting and ‘Foxhunt’ operation is the triggering event behind the student movement’s radicalization that Adorno and Marcuse later confronted.