Bernd Lünser
Bernd Lünser (born March 11, 1939 in Berlin ; † October 4, 1961 there ) was one of the first to die on the Berlin Wall . During an attempt to escape from the GDR over a house roof on Bernauer Strasse , he missed a jumping mat set up by the West Berlin fire brigade .
Life
Bernd Lünser was born in Berlin. Since his parents divorced, he grew up with his mother in Friedrichshain, his father moved to West Berlin. After graduating from high school, he did an apprenticeship as a bricklayer in a company in East Berlin and then began studying civil engineering at the State Engineering School for Construction in Berlin-Neukölln . He continued to live in East Berlin and had to interrupt his studies to build the wall . He wanted to flee to the West by the beginning of the winter semester 1961/1962.
On the evening of October 4, 1961, he went to Bernauer Strasse. The full width of the street belonged to West Berlin, while the houses on the southern side of the street belonged to East Berlin. To prevent people from escaping, the GDR authorities had the houses cleared and began to wall up the windows. There were several escapes in the area, during which Olga Segler died on September 26, 1961 . Bernd Lünser climbed onto the roof of a house in Swinemünder Straße and walked over the roofs towards Bernauer Straße, where he wanted to abseil on a clothesline. He tried so not to be discovered by border guards. This attempt failed when two border guards noticed him and pursued him. Lünser started running and called for help from West Berlin. The West Berlin fire brigade took up a jumping sheet in front of house number 44. A scuffle broke out between Lünser and the border guards, during which Lünser and a border guards slipped to the edge of the roof. When Lünser was able to break away from the border guard, he jumped from the roof, but missed the open jumping mat. The impact on the pavement was fatal.
During the attempt to escape, the GDR border guards fired shots, some of which hit the west. Therefore the West Berlin police returned fire. The border guards who slipped to the edge of the roof with Lünser was hit in the thigh. As a result, officials from West and East Berlin were mutually assigned guilt, which, through the statements of Karl Maron , reached down to the ministerial level.
The process was re-examined after German reunification , but could not be fully clarified. The trial against one of the border guards ended in an acquittal. The presumption that at least one other person besides Bernd Lünser took part in the escape attempt, however, could be refuted, although this was assumed for years on the basis of Western eyewitness reports .
The body was buried in the municipal cemetery in Steglitz . A plaque on the sidewalk commemorates Bernd Lünser and his death.
literature
- Roses for the brigadier . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1961 ( online ).
- Christine Brecht : Bernd Lünser , in: The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989 , Berlin 2009, pp. 48–50.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke: The Fatalities on the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical handbook, 2009, ISBN 3861535173 , here , p. 49
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lünser, Bernd |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German wall victim |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 11, 1939 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th October 1961 |
| Place of death | Berlin |