Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener

Memorial for the victims of the Wall in Treptow

Jörg Hartmann (born October 27, 1955 ) and Lothar Schleusener (born  January 14, 1953 ; both †  March 14, 1966 in Berlin ) are among the younger victims of the Berlin Wall, aged 10 and 13, respectively .

Escape plan and death

On the evening of March 14, 1966, the two friends were in the allotment garden colony "Sorgefrei" in the north of the East Berlin district of Treptow . Jörg Hartmann, who lived with his grandmother in East Berlin with his siblings, wanted to go to his father in West Berlin .

The two boys' plan was to crawl through the pipe in which the Heidekampgraben was led through under the barriers. When the border guards on duty discovered the two children, they opened fire, although the GDR's firearms regulations expressly forbade the use of weapons against children. Jörg Hartmann suffered several headshots and was dead on the spot. Lothar Schleusener was badly hit and taken to the People's Police Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries a few hours later.

As a result, the State Security tried to cover up the incident. The bodies of the two children were cremated in the nearby Baumschulenweg crematorium . Jörg Hartmann's family was told that the boy had drowned in a lake near Treptow. Lothar Schleusener's mother was led to believe that her son had died of an electric shock in a small town near Leipzig .

Legal processing

The two border guards Siegfried B. and Paul P. were not prosecuted in the GDR despite their violation of the applicable firearms use regulations. In November 1997 the Berlin Regional Court sentenced former guard Siegfried B. to a suspended prison sentence of 20 months for manslaughter. Paul P. had already died at the time of the trial. There was no investigation against the superiors of the two border guards.

Commemoration

Memorial plaque, Kiefholzstrasse 333, in Berlin-Plänterwald

At the instigation of the Treptow District Assembly , a memorial was erected in 1999 in memory of the 15 people who perished at the Berlin Wall in the Treptow district. The memorial created by the sculptors Rüdiger Roehl and Jan Skuin was erected at Kiefholzstrasse 333 at the point where Hartmann and Schleusener were shot. The plaque at the foot of the memorial bears the inscription:

“Fifteen people died at the Berlin Wall in Treptow. Two children were among the victims. Jörg Hartmann, 10 years old, and Lothar Schleusener, 13 years old, shot on March 14, 1966. "

documentary

• Simone Warias, Friedrich Herkt: Born 1955 - shot dead 1966 . At: Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk 2001.

literature

• Hans-Hermann Hertle , Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual. Ed. from the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam and the Berlin Wall Foundation. Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 .

Web links

Commons : Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Brief portrait of Jörg Hartmann. At Chronicle of the Wall
• Brief portrait of Lothar Schleusener. At Chronicle of the Wall
• Ulrike Plewnia: Children in the hail of bullets. In: Focus 33/2001

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sigrid Averesch: GDR border soldier sentenced to 20 months / "unconditional fulfillment of duty" as a motive: suspended sentence for shooting children to death . In: Berliner Zeitung . ( berliner-zeitung.de [accessed on May 3, 2017]).