Johannes Muschol

Johannes Muschol (born May 31, 1949 in Aschau am Inn ; † March 16, 1981 in Berlin ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall and a wall jumper . A member of the GDR border troops shot the German citizen when he jumped over the wall into the death strip.

Life

While Johannes Muschol was studying medicine, he was diagnosed with schizophrenic psychosis , for which he had to seek treatment more often. He completed his studies, but by 1979 his condition deteriorated to the point where he was written incapacitated .

Trip to Berlin

On March 14, 1981, he drove with a friend from West Germany to West Berlin to attend a celebration. On the way, the two got into an argument because Muschol wanted to get out of the car on the transit route . In Berlin, the two separated initially, but met again at the evening party and agreed to meet for the return journey the following day at 11 a.m. at the Zoo train station . Muschol did not show up at the meeting point. Instead, he was found in a nursing home in the Treptow district , one of East Berlin's districts, and was brought back to the west.

On the following morning of March 16, 1981, he asked about the border security on the west side of the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing . Later he wandered through Berlin, asking residents for water, bread and a washing facility. He went to Berlin-Reinickendorf , where he climbed a viewing platform by the wall that faced the East Berlin district of Wilhelmsruh .

Conflict on the wall

Shortly after 11 a.m. near the Wilhelmsruh S-Bahn station, Muschol climbed over the parapet of a platform in Copenhagener Strasse onto the crown of the Berlin Wall , jumped into the death strip and ran towards East Berlin. The crew of a watchtower spotted him and one of the border guards descended to capture Muschol. He wrongly interpreted the intruder's behavior as alcohol or drug-related. The border guard was able to catch Muschol at first, but he tore himself free and tried hopelessly to overcome the three-meter high interior wall. There was allegedly a dispute between the border guards about the use of firearms, at the end of which the guard leader, who remained on the tower, fired three shots at Muschol. Muschol died shortly afterwards, fatally in the heart. The border guards waited until evening and did not remove the body until it was dark.

After the autopsy, the reports were changed in order to erase the identity of the dead person - initially known by name - from the files and thus to conceal the circumstances of the death. Two weeks later, the Ministry of State Security took the now officially unidentified body to a crematorium and moved the urn to an undisclosed location.

Aftermath

Because of the upcoming state visits from Germany and Austria and the Leipzig trade fair , the shots for the leadership of the GDR came at an inappropriate time, so that the cover-up was decided. In the Federal Republic of Germany there were press reports about the stranger on March 16. Inquiries from West Berlin about the identity and the condition of the unknown were rejected by the GDR authorities. In January 1982, witnesses identified Muschol in photos as the stranger. Muschol's relatives contacted the GDR negotiator for humanitarian issues, Wolfgang Vogel , who denied that it was Johannes Muschol.

Although the shots at citizens of West Berlin were also forbidden under GDR law and special orders for restraint (shots only in self-defense ) were in force on the day of the event (shots only in self-defense ), there were no investigations against the two border guards. After German reunification, the shooter had to answer a wall shooter trial before the Berlin district court . The shooter received a three-year prison sentence for manslaughter in 1996.

literature

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

Web links

• Portrait of Johannes Muschol at chronik-der-mauer.de