This Weekly Standard piece summarises recent revelations that the policeman who shot the student Benno Ohnesorge, thereby fuelling RAF terrorism, was a Stasi agent. A Communist spy was therefore behind the claim that West GErmany was 'really' a Fascist state.

We watched the Baader-Meinhof Komplex the other night on DVD. It captured the awful narcissism and self-romanticisation of the main characters, although after a while it just became another shoot up film. The poor actor who played the lead policeman also can't shrug off the role of Hitler in Downfall either, partly because he rolled his R's in a similar fashion. While the film handled the gang's dealings with Black September quite well, I missed any reference to their manifold dealings with the Stasi. They helped them exit/enter the Federal Republic and provided them with asylum after they dropped out. Their innocent East German neighbours often wondered why Frau X got a Trabi or a plumber before they did.

Anyway, the Standard article does, once again, raise the whole question of asymmetric indulgence shown to criminals of the Left.