Dieter Berger
Dieter Berger (born October 27, 1939 in Polkau , † December 13, 1963 in Berlin ) was a German bricklayer . He was one of the victims of the Berlin Wall .
Life
Dieter Berger's father died in World War II . His mother found a new man with whom she raised Dieter Berger and his half-brother in the town where he was born. When the war ended, the family moved to Glienicke in 1947 . There he attended elementary school until 1955 and then completed an apprenticeship as a bricklayer. Until his death he worked on a construction site of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Adlershof . He had been married since 1962 and had one daughter.
Attempted escape
On December 13, 1963, Dieter Berger went to work in the morning. During the lunch break, he got drunk with his colleagues and then left the construction site. At around 3 p.m., two border guards noticed the drunk near the border installations in Berlin-Johannisthal on the Teltow Canal . They assumed an attempt to escape when Dieter Berger began to climb a fence. After a warning shot , he came down from the fence and walked away from the border with his hands up. One of the guards opened fire and seriously injured him. He died on the way to the People's Police Hospital in Berlin-Mitte.
The motives for the alleged attempt to escape are not clear. Rather, the relatives and an investigation report from the Ministry for State Security assumed alcohol-related misconduct. Dieter Berger was considered politically uninterested and not critical of the system. After the autopsy , the coroners found that he was no longer sane as a result of the alcohol consumption and was already lying on the floor at the time of the fatal hit.
Aftermath
In 1995 the guards were indicted in a wall rifle trial before the Berlin Regional Court . One was declared incapable of standing because of two strokes. His superior was acquitted because neither the shots nor a direct order to shoot could be proven.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Berger, Dieter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 27, 1939 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Polkau |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 13, 1963 |
| Place of death | Berlin |