Bernd Lehmann (Wall victim)
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Bernd Lehmann (born July 31, 1949 in East Berlin ; † May 28, 1968 there ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . He drowned trying to escape.
Life
Bernd Lehmann grew up in Berlin. During his youth he frequently violated the laws of the GDR , which is why various educational measures up to and including home education were imposed on him. He was sentenced to prison terms for theft , fraud and forgery . When he was 15, he planned his first escape, which he wanted to make with a stolen car. Before he could implement his plan, he was "held accountable" by the authorities for the preparation . In the same year he was sent to the prison in Berlin I. There he exchanged ideas with other inmates about escape routes and began new escape plans for the time after his release. His new plan was to steal an airplane from the airfield of the Society for Sport and Technology and fly it to West Berlin . He asked a fellow inmate to get him a gun when he was released. This fellow prisoner worked with the Ministry for State Security (MfS).
In December 1967 he was released from prison and worked as a lathe operator at VEB Elektroapparatewerk Treptow . Part of his wages was seized for damages . He was dissatisfied with the professional situation, but he lacked the qualifications for his career aspiration to become a sports teacher. The informant in his vicinity reported to the MfS in May that the airport escape plans had been abandoned and that Bernd Lehmann assessed the escape possibilities at the inner German border as greater.
On the eve of his attempt to escape, he quarreled with his mother because he was absent from work and she feared that he would commit offenses again. In a spontaneous act, he left the apartment that night and went to Treptower Park . There he went into the Spree and swam towards the border with West Berlin. About 20 meters from the border he got caught in barbed wire that was stretched under water. He drowned. His body was recovered from the Osthafen on June 2, 1968 .
literature
- Hans-Hermann Hertle , Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961 - 1989. A biographical handbook. Edited by the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam and the Berlin Wall Foundation. Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lehmann, Bernd |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German fatality on the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 31, 1949 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 28, 1968 |
| Place of death | Berlin |