Lothar Fritz Freie

Lothar Fritz Freie (born February 8, 1955 in Großburgwedel ; † June 6, 1982 in Berlin ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . When the West Berliner ran into the territory of the GDR, he was shot by members of the GDR border troops and later died of his injuries.

Life

View of the Bösebrücke with the border installations, in the middle a border fence, on the left the Allied track

Lothar Fritz Freie came to Berlin with a schoolmate after graduating from high school in 1977 to study law. He broke off his studies after four semesters. In the following years he stayed in Berlin without work or income and had little contact with friends and relatives. Since he no longer had his identity card, he could not leave West Berlin.

On the evening of June 4, 1982, Freie went over the so-called Allied Track into the area of ​​the no man's land between West Berlin and the GDR. The track lying in the wasteland of the apron of the disused S-Bahn station Bornholmer Strasse was used weekly by the French army, but was located on the territory of the GDR. For unknown reasons, Freie ran along the track with a bare chest. He was discovered around 11 p.m. by border guards from the watchtower on the Helmut Just Bridge (in 1993 the bridge was renamed "Behmbrücke" again), but they lost sight of him again. A second pair of guards discovered him a little later near the Bösebrücke and called him to leave the premises immediately. Freie turned to return to West Berlin on the route previously used; he would have been a few meters to the side in his home area. On his way back he passed the first pair of guards, who had meanwhile been ordered to arrest him and had left the tower to pursue him. When they asked him to stop, Free began to run. After a warning shot, one of the two border guards shot twice specifically at free, who fell to the ground. The injured man was immediately rescued from the track in order to remove him from West Berlin's field of vision. After first aid in the watchtower on the Helmut-Just Bridge, he was taken to the People's Police Hospital , where he died on June 6th after two emergency operations.

Although the shots at citizens of West Berlin were also prohibited under GDR law, the two border guards were marked and transferred to other units. After German reunification, wall rifle trials against the border soldiers took place at the Berlin Regional Court. The shooter was sentenced to two years probation in 1993, while his comrade, who claimed to have been brought up in a dissident manner, received an 18-month probation sentence in 1995.

The western media reported extensively on the case, which was condemned by both the federal government and the Berlin Senate .

Web links

• Portrait of Lothar Fritz Freie at chronik-der-mauer.de