Horst Kutscher
_Horst_Kutscher.jpg)
Horst Kutscher (born July 5, 1931 in Berlin ; † January 15, 1963 there ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . While trying to escape from the GDR , a member of the GDR border troops shot him dead on Rudower Strasse.
Life
As the youngest child of a family of 15, Horst Kutscher was born in the Treptow district and grew up in Adlershof . At the age of 14, he left school to begin an apprenticeship as a car mechanic, which he had to break off after six months. He then worked first as a cleaner, later at coal traders in East Berlin . He married in 1952. He had six children with his wife. Kutscher had been sentenced to penitentiary and prison terms several times for theft, burglary and bodily harm. The People's Police recruited Kutscher as an informant in 1956, until they separated from him after two months due to unreliability.
In April of the same year Kutscher fled to West Germany. His wife followed him with the children in Bochum. Their fourth child was born there. After a year the family returned to East Berlin. From then on, Horst Kutscher worked as a cross-border commuter in West Berlin . In 1960 he moved in with his father. The marriage was divorced in November 1962 because of Kutscher's alcohol problems. Also because of alcohol consumption, he and his friend Joachim F. lost their job in a coal shop in December 1962. When the Treptow District Labor Court dismissed their lawsuit against the dismissal without notice on January 14, 1963, they spent the afternoon in various restaurants. Very drunk, they decided to flee to the west.
Around 10 p.m. they went to the border area on Semmelweißstrasse. They wanted to cross the frozen Teltow Canal to West Berlin. As part of the increased border surveillance due to the VI. At the SED party conference , the border area at the Teltow Canal was completely illuminated. Horst Kutscher and F. changed their plan. In a garden colony on Rudower Strasse, they crawled under a border fence and crouched in the border strip until the border guards present moved away from them. Then they crawled to the second and last border fence. She was shot twice without warning. F. was arrested. Horst Kutscher was hit by a bullet and died on the way to the border guards base.
Horst Kutscher was buried anonymously. His family was not allowed to attend the funeral. In West Berlin, the death of Kutscher became known in October 1963 through a former inmate of F., who was imprisoned for fleeing the republic .
On August 27, 1997, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced the gunman to one year and three months ' imprisonment on probation .
literature
- Lydia Dollmann : Horst Kutscher , in: The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989 , Links, Berlin 2009, pp. 126–128.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Coachman, Horst |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 5, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 15, 1963 |
| Place of death | Berlin |