Egon Schultz

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Egon Schultz

Egon Schultz (* 4. January 1943 in Groß Jestin , county Kolberg-Körlin ; † 5. October 1964 in East Berlin ) was a non-commissioned officer of the border troops of the GDR . He was accidentally shot by another GDR border soldier during an exchange of fire with escape workers. The GDR leadership untruthfully reported that Schultz was shot by an escape helper. This propaganda lie was only revealed after the German reunification .

Commemoration at the scene of Egon Schultz's death on the 10th anniversary of the Wall (August 13, 1971)
Memorial plaque on the Strelitzer Strasse 55 house in Berlin-Mitte
The grave of Egon Schultz (2018 photo)
Dethardingstrasse 16 (formerly Karl-Marx-Strasse 16), Rostock. Egon Schultz's last home before his death.

Life

Egon Schultz was born as the younger of two sons of the driver Alfred Schultz and his wife Frieda, a waitress, worked as a teacher in Rostock -Dierkow from September 1962 to November 1963 , until he was called up for military service. Before his military service, he had his residence at Karl-Marx-Straße 16 in Rostock. He made his last home visit just days before his death when his parents were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

In an escape campaign for which tunnel 57 was dug (co-financed by Stern editor-in-chief Henri Nannen through the pre-purchase of the exclusive rights to the tunnel construction), 57 refugees were able to move from a backyard at Strelitzer Strasse 55 in East Berlin to West Berlin within two nights. Flee Berlin . The escape workers were armed with pistols from police stocks. When Schultz entered the courtyard of Strelitzer Strasse 55 with two MfS members and machine guns at the ready, an exchange of fire broke out in the course of which Schultz was hit by a bullet from the pistol of the escape helper Christian Zobel . He went down and was accidentally shot and killed by a GDR border guard with his Kalashnikov while trying to get up .

Propaganda lie in the GDR

After Schultz's death, the GDR leadership claimed that he had been shot by “Western agents” or by the escape helper Christian Zobel. In fact, she knew that Schultz was only injured by Zobel; the fatal shot was fired by the GDR border guard Volker M. The SED leadership suppressed this fact and instead accused the escape helpers. The government of the GDR always publicly represented its version and propagated Schultz as a folk hero. Evidence was manipulated for this purpose. Among other things, a photo of Schultz's jacket was cropped so that the bullet holes of the projectiles could no longer be seen. It was only through the opening of the Stasi files that it was possible to rectify that the fatal shots were fired from the weapon of a border soldier. However, by this time the escape helper who fired the first shot and was portrayed as a shooter had already died. One of the escape helpers involved was the future astronaut Reinhard Furrer , who died in 1995 and also before the reconnaissance.

As the photos show, the parents and some of his students were incorporated into the propaganda lie, especially without taking his parents' emotions into account.

In 1974 the book 172 Days by Herbert Mühlstädt was published by the East Berlin children 's book publisher , in which the life story of Egon Schulz was told in a heroic way and his death was presented in the official GDR version.

Aftermath

After Schultz's death, several institutions in the GDR were given the name "Egon Schultz", such as the Rostock school where he was a teacher, a Berlin polytechnic high school and the POS in Hangelsberg , a Hönower school, a military camp in Prerow and a children's home in Rostock -Lichtenhagen and a non-commissioned officer school. In 1976 a youth tourist hotel at the Berlin zoo was named after Schultz. In addition, brigades , streets (one of them in Berlin-Mitte in 1966 ), barracks and rest homes were named after him and a children's book was written about him.

On December 1, 1991, the Egon-Schultz-Strasse in Berlin was renamed Strelitzer Strasse , and the former Egon-Schultz-Oberschule in Rostock is now called the Käthe-Kollwitz-Gymnasium. The memorial stone there, which was co-financed by parents and students, still exists.

In 1995 the Hönower Egon-Schultz-Oberschule near Berlin was renamed the Brothers Grimm Primary School by the school conference . The application, also submitted by the school conference, to remove the memorial stone with the inscription “Our legacy - role model for young people” was rejected by the mayor.

Britta Wauer illuminates the escape action Tunnel 57 from October 1964 , which preceded the fatal exchange of fire , in her 2001 documentary Heldentod - The Tunnel and the Lie (Arte / ZDF). The documentary, which was awarded the German Television Prize, was shown for the first time on August 8, 2001 on Arte under the title Heldentod - Who Shot Egon Schultz?

In 2004, on the initiative of former escape helpers, refugees and friends of Egon Schultz, a commemorative plaque was installed at the place of death on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this event in cooperation with the Berlin Wall Documentation Center. "Egon Schultz was idealized as a hero in the GDR, the escape helpers were considered agents and murderers," it says on the board.

literature

Web links

Commons : Egon Schultz  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Germany Archive: A Son of Our Republic , October 10, 1964
  2. ^ Peter Kirschey: No heroic story in new Germany from August 13, 2012
  3. ↑ Escape helpers from "Tunnel 57": 145 meters to freedom Spiegel Online
  4. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Intrigue - how the Stasi shot a GDR border guard , Die Welt, October 4, 2014
  5. ↑ 172 days. Children's book by Herber Mühlstedt Bibliographic information in the Central Directory of Antiquarian Books
  6. ^ Hotel through the ages - it began 35 years ago on the website of the Marzahn-Hellersdorfer Wirtschaftskreis
  7. ↑ Violent dispute over name change . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 26, 1996
  8. ↑ publisher's report
personal data
SURNAME Schultz, Egon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German GDR border officer, accidentally shot by a subordinate
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Groß Jestin , Kolberg-Körlin district
DATE OF DEATH 5th October 1964
Place of death Berlin