Heinz Sokolowski
Heinz Sokolowski (born December 17, 1917 in Frankfurt (Oder) , † November 25, 1965 in Berlin ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . Members of the GDR border troops shot him trying to escape on the wall between the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building . He was both a victim of the Berlin Wall and a political prisoner.
Life
Heinz Sokolowski was born in Frankfurt (Oder) during the First World War . After graduating from elementary school, he did an apprenticeship as a tailor . He then attended a business school to do his Abitur there. He gave up this project after he was offered a journalistic career with the Frankfurter Oderzeitung . After being drafted into military service, he fought with the Wehrmacht in various places during World War II . He had also been used as a war correspondent . In Russia he became a prisoner of war and was won over to communism in an anti- fascist course .
When he returned from captivity in 1946, he moved to the Soviet sector of Berlin and worked there as a freelance journalist. The following year he married and moved to Prenzlauer Berg with his wife and newborn daughter . The couple divorced in 1951. Until his arrest on February 12, 1953, he worked for the Soviet occupation forces. He was sentenced by a military tribunal for espionage first to 20 years, later to 10 years in prison and taken to a labor camp in the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities handed it over to the GDR authorities in 1956. He was imprisoned until February 13, 1963, where he also contracted tuberculosis .
Attempted escape
After his imprisonment, he worked as an elevator operator in East Berlin. He wanted to leave the GDR and submitted an exit application that was not approved. Because of his contacts in West Berlin, he caught the attention of the MfS in 1964 . After his immediate release in May 1965, he began logistical preparations for his escape, which he began on the morning of November 25, 1965 at around 5 a.m. He approached the border through Clara-Zetkin-Strasse - today's Dorotheenstrasse. A border guard noticed him and fired a warning shot to which Heinz Sokolowski did not react. More border guards rushed over and shot specifically at the fugitive, who had already reached the last wall, which was reinforced with barbed wire. Heinz Sokolowski was hit in the abdomen and succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.
Commemoration
In 1966, the August 13th Working Group erected a three meter high cross at the corner of Ebertstrasse and Scheidemannstrasse to commemorate Heinz Sokolowski. On the inscription next to the life data it says: "Shot after 7 years in GDR imprisonment while fleeing".
A cross facing the bank of the White Crosses Memorial on the Reichstag embankment commemorates Heinz Sokolowski.
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 | Sokolowski, Heinz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 17, 1917 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Frankfurt (Oder) |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 1965 |
| Place of death | Berlin |