I recently heard an interesting story that a greater stretch of Berlin’s Kochstrasse was recently renamed after student activist Rudi Dutschke (1940-79). Kochstrasse is well known as the metro stop for Checkpoint Charlie, so the the change is not an obscure one.

Dutschke was a student leader in West Berlin. He was born in the East, but fled the oppression just before the Wall. In West he quickly became a charismatic figure of city’s “1968″ movement. In April 1968 he was shot thrice by a local redneck on Kurfürstendamm. Dutschke survived, but just barely and with severe brain damage.

The shooter attempted suicide but didn’t succeed and was duly jailed. Dutschke and his attacker engaged in correspondence while the latter was in prison. The shooter took his life in 1970. Whether the correspondence lead into any redemption I have no knowledge of.

Dutschke lived for another eleven years. Because of his injuries he had to learn to speak again. He went to Cambridge but was eventually expelled from Britain as an “unwanted alien”. He settled in Århus, Denmark and was involved in the foundation of the German Green party just before dying of consequential injuries in 1979.

The new street also meets the Axel-Springer-Strasse, directly at the offices of Springer publishing company. For decades the Springer newspapers and magazines have been seen as reactionary proponents of the German media and were thus spittoons for the left-wing activists and the Red Army Faction, who resorted to violence. Dutschke split from the violent faction (who bombed Springer’s Hamburg office in 1972), but nevertheless the renaming of the street was of nuisance to the Springer company.

Together with some CDU representatives and other neighbours, Springer tried to halt the process, but eventually the residents of Kreuzberg went for the memory of Dutschke in a referendum.

Poetic, if twisted justice, that is.