Hans-Joachim Wolf
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Hans-Joachim Wolf (born August 8, 1944 in Berlin ; † November 26, 1964 there ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . Members of the GDR border troops shot him while trying to escape in the Britz branch canal .
Life
Hans-Joachim Wolf grew up in Berlin-Friedrichshain . He finished school there in 1964 and began an apprenticeship in East Berlin in September. He was not allowed to pursue his actual wish, an apprenticeship as a radio and telecommunications technician, due to a lack of engagement in the GDR youth organizations. On December 9, 1963, he tried to get to the West for the first time. When he was picked up on a train at Friedrichstrasse station , he claimed to have accidentally boarded the wrong train. This attempt had no consequences for him.
Instead of going to vocational school, he went to a rented room in the Hotel Adlon on November 25, 1964 . He carried a briefcase with, among other things, a rope. Presumably he wanted to abseil himself from his hotel room to the border area and overcome the border at the level of the Brandenburg Gate . The next morning he rejected this plan, drove to Alexanderplatz and locked his briefcase there. Then he drove to Berlin-Treptow . At around 6:30 p.m. he overcame a 2.5 m high barbed wire fence and jumped into the Britzer Zweigkanal to swim west. Two border guards spotted him and immediately started shooting at him. Of the 61 projectiles fired, one hit him fatally in the upper body.
The shots could be heard in West Berlin, so the West Berlin police closed the nearby border crossing on Sonnenallee. The next day the newspapers reported an unknown dead person. After German reunification, the Berlin public prosecutor brought charges against the two gunmen in 1994. The trial before the Berlin Regional Court ended in September 1996 for one of the two with a suspended sentence of 16 months. The second gunman died shortly before the end of the trial.
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 | Wolf, Hans-Joachim |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 8, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 26, 1964 |
| Place of death | Berlin |