Gerald Thiem

Memorial plaque, Kiefholzstrasse 79, in Berlin-Plänterwald

Gerald Thiem (born September 6, 1928 in Berlin ; † August 7, 1970 ibid) was a German worker who was killed on the Berlin Wall . Members of the border troops of the GDR shot the wall jumper as he came from the west into the border area.

Life

Gerald Thiem grew up in Berlin and completed an apprenticeship as a pipe fitter after school. He lived in Britz with his wife and their two daughters.

On the evening of August 7, 1970, drunk, he went to Neukölln near the Berlin Wall . There he insulted border guards of the GDR and climbed the barriers around 11:15 p.m. Contrary to the request of a border guard, he ran through a railway underpass and got into the field of fire of two other border guards who shot him. Four other border guards also fired targeted shots at Thiem from different points of view. When hit, Gerald Thiem collapsed. The border troops drove him to the People's Police Hospital , where he arrived dead. A total of 177 shots were fired by the border guards.

Objects that Gerald Thiem was carrying after work when he was shot on August 7, 1970.

The desperate family is also investigating in East Berlin. The attorney general pretends not to know. Gerald Thiem has been dead for 3 months.

Two border guards received the border troop badge the following day, while the other four received prizes in kind. After the fall of the wall in 1998, two shooters had to answer for a wall shooter trial before the district court of Berlin , which ended with a prison sentence of 15 months for collective manslaughter. The sentences were suspended.

The Ministry for State Security (MfS) decided to keep the death a secret, as no inquiries about Thiem's ​​disappearance came from the West. A connection with the shooting was not established. In a memo of August 10, 1970 on the Thiem case, it says: "Today, Gen. Borchert found the Deputy Attorney General of the GDR in the presence of Gen. Colonel Heinitz, Gen. Colonel Niebling, Gen. Captain Reissmann and Gen. Oberleutnant Möbus a discussion about the Thieme corpse case took place. After examination of all circumstances it was determined that this corpse case would be treated as unknown and closed. It was instructed that all measures of secrecy were taken. " In the crematorium of the Baumschulenweg cemetery, his body was cremated as an unknown dead person at the instigation of the MfS and the ashes were scattered anonymously. The search for Thiem in West Berlin fizzled out, so that he was pronounced dead in June 1981. His family found out about his fate in 1994 through criminal investigations in the archives of the GDR.

literature

• Hans-Hermann Hertle , Maria Nooke : The Fatalities at the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical handbook , Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3861535173 .

Web links

Commons : Gerald Thiem  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Portrait of Gerald Thiem at chronik-der-mauer.de