Fatalities at the Berlin Wall

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Salvation of the shot Günter Litfin from the basin of the Humboldthafen on August 24, 1961

As deaths at the Berlin Wall (also walls victims or wall dead ) used to describe people between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989 at escape from East Germany at the Berlin Wall due to the application of the firing order by soldiers of the East German border troops or died in accidents.

There are different statements about the number of fatalities. According to the state-funded research project of the Center for Contemporary Historical Research (ZZF) and the Berlin Wall Foundation , there were at least 140 victims of the Wall , including 101 GDR refugees , 30 people from East and West who had an accident or were shot without any intention of fleeing , and 8 on duty killed border guards. The ZZF does not count among the actual victims of the Wall the people who died of natural causes - mainly from heart attacks - during or after the border controls . At least 251 such cases are known. The August 13th Working Group , operator of the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie , assumed 245 victims of the Wall and 38 natural deaths in 2009.

The Ministry for State Security (MfS) determined the circumstances of the incidents and, as far as possible, checked the handling of the dead and injured. The MfS tried to cover up the truth about the incident from relatives and the public. Certificates were forged, false reports were given to the press and traces were covered. After the fall of the Wall, some of the incidents were dealt with legally in the political bureau and wall rifle trials against executing border soldiers and their military and political superiors. There were 131 trials against 277 people, around half of which ended in convictions.

history

The GDR continued to expand the sector boundary
The outer ring around West Berlin was also expanded further

After the Second World War, Berlin was divided into four sectors under the control of the allied states USA , Soviet Union , Great Britain and France . After the internal German border between the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany was continuously sealed off from 1952, the sector borders in Berlin remained as a largely open route out of the GDR. The outer ring around West Berlin, the border between West Berlin and the GDR, was also cordoned off from 1952. On the night of August 12th to 13th, 1961, the National People's Army (NVA), the German Border Police , the People's Police and the factory combat groups sealed off all routes between the Soviet sector and the three western sectors. The construction of the border security systems began.

In the early years, the border fortifications in the inner city mostly consisted of a brick wall with a barbed wire crown. Bricks and concrete slabs were used as building materials. Further barbed wire obstacles were designed as a demarcation to the east in addition to a rear wall. In some places, such as in Bernauer Strasse, houses whose doors and windows were walled up formed the borderline. The houses were on East Berlin territory, the sidewalk belonged to West Berlin. The security systems of the outer ring around West Berlin consisted in many places of metal fences and barbed wire barriers. The technically advanced expansion took place later. The expansion of the wall with L-shaped concrete segments, as it was when the wall fell, did not begin until 1975.

According to research by the ZZF, the story of the deaths on the Berlin Wall began nine days after the construction of the wall began with the death of Ida Siekmann . She died of injuries she sustained jumping out of the window of her apartment on Bernauer Strasse onto the sidewalk in West Berlin. Two days later there was the first death from the wall as a result of armed violence, when transport police officers Günter Litfin shot dead at the Humboldthafen Bridge. Five days later, Roland Hoff was shot. In the years that followed, people repeatedly died trying to flee the GDR. Some cases, such as the death of Peter Fechter , came into the center of public attention, others remained undiscovered until after German reunification .

Registered escapes from the GDR
Period refugees Barrier breaker
1961-1970 105,533 29,612
1971-1980 39.197 8,240
1981-1988 33,452 2,249
Note: The information relates to all escape routes
from the GDR, not just from East Berlin. Without emigrants.

Around half of all Berlin Wall victims died in the first five years after the sector border was sealed off. In the early years of the Wall, the number of all escapes as well as those by overcoming the border fortifications of the GDR was significantly higher than in the following decades. This led to a higher number of deaths on the inner-German border and the Berlin Wall. From initially between 8,500 and 2,300 people who fled directly via the border installations (“barrier breakers”), the number fell from the end of the 1970s to around 300 people per year. With the increased technical expansion of the wall, this escape route lost its importance. Other ways to leave the GDR, e.g. B. via the socialist neighboring countries, with forged passports or hidden in vehicles, were used more frequently.

In most cases, members of the GDR border troops (until September 1961 the German border police) fired the fatal shots; transport police officers, people's police officers or NVA soldiers were less involved. Peter Kreitlow († January 1963) was the only one who was shot by Soviet soldiers (who were not normally used in border guards in the GDR). They had tracked down the escape group around Kreitlow in a forest two kilometers from the border and shot them.

The majority of those who died at the Wall were people from East Berlin and the GDR, who - often spontaneously and sometimes after consuming alcohol - attempted to flee. According to the ZZF investigation, there were 98 cases. There were also West Berliners, including several children, as well as several German citizens and an Austrian. In March 1962 the two escape helpers Heinz Jercha and Siegfried Noffke and two border guards were shot in the vicinity of the escape tunnel . The escape helper Dieter Wohlfahrt died in 1961 as a result of a gunshot wound he suffered when he cut a hole in the border fence. Other West Germans died after they - sometimes accidentally, confused or intoxicated - had reached the border area or the border waters, such as Hermann Döbler and Paul Stretz , or the wall jumpers Dieter Beilig and Johannes Muschol .

At least eight members of the border troops were shot by refugees, escape helpers, deserters, West Berlin police officers or accidentally by their own comrades ( self- fire ). The majority of the fatalities were male and under 30 years old. At least 13 children and young people under the age of 18 were killed.

The youngest victim was the 15 month old Holger H .; he suffocated in a car while his parents escaped in 1973. The oldest victim was 80-year-old Olga Segler , who was fatally injured in 1961 when jumping out of her apartment on Bernauer Strasse. The last to die was Winfried Freudenberg , who on March 8, 1989 initially managed to escape with a gas balloon , but fell over West Berlin and had a fatal accident. Chris Gueffroy , who died in early February 1989, was the last wall victim to be killed by the use of firearms. In addition to the known victims, there are several unknown dead whose circumstances of death are not known.

According to studies by the ZZF, at least 251 people died of natural causes during border controls in Berlin. This affected 227 people at the border crossing in Friedrichstrasse station alone . Heart attacks were the leading cause of death. The border controls, also in transit traffic through the GDR , caused stress for many travelers, which was caused by the martial barriers and the strict, unfriendly demeanor of the passport control units . Many travelers felt harassed if they had to wait disproportionately long or were interrogated for small offenses. Few of these cases became public knowledge. Because of the secrecy in the GDR, this was particularly true of deceased GDR citizens.

Procedure of the state organs of the GDR

The border guards of the GDR were tasked with preventing “ illegal border crossings ” by all means. To this end, they were given the shooting order that came into effect in 1960 , which remained in force several times until 1989 and was also valid at the sector border. If a shot was fired, an arrest or a death occurred, the MfS took over the investigation and decided on how to proceed. From the analyzes of the incidents, the MfS derived instructions for the border guards. Initially, wounded or shot refugees were left lying open until they were evacuated, so that they could also be seen by West Berliners and the Western press. After the reactions to Peter Fechter's public death, the border guards were instructed to remove the dead or injured from West Berlin's field of vision as quickly as possible. Negative reporting should be avoided. Because of this, the border guards often pulled people into the car barrier ditch of the border security system. Sometimes they waited until dark before they were transported away.

The border troops had to bring injured people to the People's Police Hospital in Berlin-Mitte or to the Drewitz Army Hospital near Potsdam. There was no medical assistance during the transport. In order not to cause a stir, the border guards mostly did not use ambulances for the transport, but rather trucks or Trabant jeeps . Upon arrival at one of the institutes, the MfS department line IX or, in exceptional cases, the main department IX took over the process. The injured remained in the hospitals under the surveillance of the Stasi. You should be transferred to one of the MfS remand prisons as soon as possible. The Charité Forensic Medicine Institute or the Bad Saarow Military Medical Academy were responsible for corpses . In these places it was easier to keep the incidents secret than in other institutions.

The MfS had complete control over the dead. It dealt with all formalities under conspiratorial conditions up to and including the cremation of the corpses in the Berlin-Baumschulenweg crematorium . In order to cover up the circumstances of death, the MfS forged death certificates and other documents, operated a "legend". Reports of deaths had to be submitted to both the Minister for State Security and the chairman of the GDR 's National Defense Council . The MfS also carried out further investigations. The focus of interest was not the securing of evidence, but rather the concealment of the incidents from the public, especially the western ones. The border guards involved and any companions who were shot or injured were interrogated and the relatives contacted. In relation to the latter, the MfS concealed the exact circumstances of death in many cases or obliged them to keep silent about the circumstances. The relatives were denied a personal farewell to the dead. Funeral ceremonies were not allowed to be organized by the MfS. At the burial of the urn - if at all - only the closest family members were allowed to be present under guard. Some families only found out about the fate of their relatives after reunification. The whereabouts of some of the dead remains unclear to this day.

“The political sensitivity of the state border with Berlin (West) made it necessary to cover up the incident. It had to be prevented that rumors about the incident get into circulation or that information about it flows to West Berlin or the FRG. "

- MfS report on Michael Bittner's death in 1986

The MfS checked and assessed the actions of the border guards. In particular, the tactical approach was of interest, with the intention of discovering possible weak points. The border troops themselves also carried out investigations. After a prevented escape, the executing soldiers were usually promoted on the spot, were given special leave, cash bonuses or honors such as the badge of performance of the border troops or the medal for exemplary border service . Tactical errors or increased ammunition consumption were criticized in the investigation reports. Reports from the border troops tried to portray the behavior as error-free as possible.

For its actions, the MfS needed the cooperation of doctors, nurses, people's police officers, public prosecutors, administrative and registrars. Even after the fall of the Wall, most of these groups of people said nothing about their own involvement in covering up the circumstances of death.

Reactions from West Berlin and the Federal Republic

Known deaths in West Berlin sparked protests among the local population. Senate members visited the crime scenes and spoke to the press and the population. Various groups and individuals organized protests against the wall and the gunfire. When Peter Fechter bled to death helplessly in front of many people, spontaneous mass demonstrations broke out, which resulted in riots the following night. “Murderer, murderer!” Shouted the demonstrators. West Berlin police officers and US soldiers protected the wall from being stormed. Protesters threw stones at buses that Soviet soldiers were taking to guard the Soviet memorial in the Tiergarten . The incident also sparked anti-American protests, which Willy Brandt condemned. In the period that followed, loudspeaker vans were occasionally set up on the wall, from which the GDR border guards were asked not to shoot refugees and warned of possible consequences. German groups complained about the shots to the UN Human Rights Commission . The non-partisan Kuratorium Indivisible Germany sold nationwide protest posters and pins against the border regime and its consequences.

The West Berlin regulatory authorities initially gave refugees fire protection if they were shot at by border guards from the GDR. At least one fatal incident occurred when the border soldier Peter Göring was killed on May 23, 1962 when a West Berlin police officer was shot. The public prosecutor's office in Berlin only assessed this as emergency aid and self-defense in 1991 , as the police officer stated that he saw his life threatened. In many cases, West Berlin rescue workers were unable to get to the injured people because they were on the territory of the GDR or in East Berlin. There was no permit to enter this territory, so that the life of the rescue workers would have been in danger. The four children Çetin Mert , Cengaver Katrancı , Siegfried Kroboth and Giuseppe Savoca , who fell into the water on the Gröbenufer of the Spree between 1972 and 1975 , could not be rescued, although West Berlin rescue workers were quickly on site.

In April 1983 the transit traveler Rudolf Burkert died of a heart attack during an interrogation at the Drewitz border crossing. A later autopsy in the Federal Republic also found external injuries, so that violence could not be ruled out. In addition to negative press reports, this also led to the intervention of Helmut Kohl and Franz Josef Strauss . The condition was imposed on the GDR for upcoming government loans to carry out border controls in a humane manner. Two further deaths of West Germans in transit traffic shortly after Burkert's death sparked demonstrations against the GDR regime and a broad media discussion. In the following period, the control activity in transit traffic decreased.

Reactions from the Western Allies

After known deaths, the Western powers protested to the Soviet government in Moscow. In many of the cases known to them, the Western Allies did not respond to requests for help. In the case of Peter Fechter, US soldiers stated on the spot that they were not allowed into the border area, although they were allowed to do so in uniform. Major General Albert Watson, then American city commander, contacted his superiors at the White House without getting a clear answer. Watson said, "This is a case for which I have no regulation." US President John F. Kennedy was concerned about the incident and sent word to the US city commandant through his security adviser McGeorge Bundy that he should have another incident of the kind prevent. Bundy, who was in Berlin for an already planned visit in 1962, informed Willy Brandt that the President supported Brandt's efforts. Kennedy made it clear to Brandt and Adenauer, however, that United States support ended at the Berlin Wall and that there would be no effort to remove the wall.

Ten days after Fechter's death, Konrad Adenauer contacted the French President Charles de Gaulle to send a letter to Nikita Khrushchev through him . De Gaulle pledged his support. The city commanders of the four sectors, with Willy Brandt's participation, came to an agreement that military ambulances of the Western Allies could fetch injured people from the border area in order to bring them to an East Berlin hospital.

Fire protection from West Berlin for refugees shot at

When the shots of the GDR border guards at refugees endangered West Berlin police officers , fire fighters, residents and spectators or when they hit West Berlin territory, West Berlin police officers and, in one case, occupation soldiers , returned fire. In several cases, they managed to escape from West Berlin under fire protection .

  • The West Berlin police answered the fire of the GDR border guards for the first time on October 4, 1961. In dire need, the shot at refugee named Bernd Lünser jumped from the roof of a five-story house, narrowly missed the jumping mat held by the West Berlin fire brigade and died.
  • On April 17, 1963, 19-year-old Wolfgang Engels broke through the wall with a stolen armored personnel carrier. There are many indications that the escape over the wall could only succeed because a West Berlin police officer gave fire protection.
  • On May 23, 1962, a 14-year-old schoolboy swam through the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal to get to the West. Up to eight border guards targeted the boy swimming in the water. When he then drifted lifelessly in the water towards the west bank, they continued to fire at him because they “could not tell whether he was deceiving”.
A patrol of the West Berlin police returned fire from the border guards. The border soldier Peter Göring was hit by three projectiles; fatal was a ricochet that hit him after he left his border tower . Another border guard was seriously injured by a thigh bullet.
The West Berlin police rescued the boy, who was seriously hit by eight shots. He had become an invalid.
  • On September 13, 1964, the 21-year-old Michael Meyer tried to overcome the wall in Stallschreiberstrasse in Berlin-Mitte. After warning shots, GDR border guards fired and hit West Berlin houses; Meyer remained - seriously injured by five bullets - lying in the immediate vicinity of the wall. US soldiers and West Berlin police officers provided fire protection;
People's Army soldiers occupied trenches in the death strip and two East German armored personnel carriers drove into position.
Nevertheless, a sergeant in the US Army managed to pull Meyer to West Berlin with the help of ropes and a ladder leaning against the wall.
  • When the drunk West Berliners Heinz Schmidt swam through the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal in the direction of East Berlin on August 29, 1966 and the shots of the GDR border guards hit West Berlin territory, West Berlin police officers gave no fire protection. Schmidt died, fatally hit by five bullets. A criminal complaint was filed against the police officers for failure to provide assistance. Mayor and Interior Senator Heinrich Albertz took them under protection because they could not have noticed the hits 150 meters away.

Public treatment of the victims

GDR government and press

In August 1966, a road to the border guards shot was Reinhold Huhn named
In August 1986, students laid a wreath at a memorial for fallen border guards
Front page Neues Deutschland from May 25, 1962 on Peter Göring's death: "Murder attack of the Frontstadt-OAS"

Official statements on the deaths at the Wall, referred to in GDR parlance as " anti-fascist protective wall " or " bulwark of peace", and the contributions in the state-controlled media portrayed the actions of the border troops as a legitimate defense of the GDR border and defamed the dead. The border troops are said to have always acted in an exemplary manner when they supposedly protected the border from attacks, criminals, enemy agents and the West. Public relations changed over time. In later years the authorities tried to suppress as much information as possible about dead people at the Berlin Wall, especially during state visits or international trade fairs. The government of the GDR was aware that reports of deaths at the border security systems were damaging the reputation of the GDR at home and abroad. The incidents became known internationally through the Allied city commanders.

The media in the GDR were subject to strict control by the MfS and the SED , which had the GDR's second largest daily newspaper through its central organ , the Neues Deutschland newspaper. The state also had control over the content of German television , the GDR's state television broadcaster. The state used its media to portray the victims of the Wall in its own right. On the death of Peter Fechter in 1962, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler commented on the television program Der Schwarze Kanal : “The life of each and every one of our brave boys in uniform is worth more to us than the life of a lawbreaker. If one should stay away from our state border - then one can save blood, tears and screams. ” New Germany claimed that Fechter had been driven to suicide by“ front town bandits ”. The newspaper also claimed that Fechter was homosexual. Günter Litfin was falsely portrayed as a homosexual, prostitute and criminal. In other cases, too, the press representatives made untrue claims. In 1966, the Berliner Zeitung wrote of Eduard Wroblewski that he was an anti-social and, as a Foreign Legionnaire, had been wanted for serious crimes in the Halle district . But these were accusations without basis.

Border guards killed on duty, however, were hyped up to be heroes regardless of the actual circumstances of their death. They were buried in state funerals with great media attention . Groups of pioneers said goodbye to the partly open coffins. Hostile agents were always responsible for their deaths, even if later investigations showed that in about half of the cases they were accidentally shot by their own comrades. After Egon Schultz died from a comrade's weapon, the MfS spread the news that Christian Zobel, the escape helper, was responsible for the death. Zobel had shot at Schultz, but couldn't see if he had hit. He died before the fall of the Wall, so he did not learn anything about the manipulation. The propaganda also used the cases to defame groups helping escapees. For example, the Girrmann group (known as the “Girrmann bandits”) was made responsible for the death of Siegfried Widera . This group had no connection to the incident, but helped several hundred GDR citizens to escape.

In honor of the border guards who were killed, streets, schools, pioneer groups and squares were named after them. Several memorials and memorial plaques were erected in Berlin. Annual commemoration ceremonies took place at these, in which the Free German Youth took part.

Direct statements by the government about the shots at the Berlin Wall were rare. During the Leipzig Fair on September 5, 1976, two West German reporters managed to ask Erich Honecker questions about the wall shots. When asked whether it was possible to do without the shots, Honecker initially replied evasively: “You know, I don't want to talk about the shots, because in the Federal Republic there are so many shots every day, week, month, I don't want to count them When asked whether it was possible to reach an agreement with the FRG to refrain from shooting, Honecker stated: “The most important thing is not to provoke at the border, and if you don't provoke at the border, then it will be completely normal. It was normal for a long time, and it will continue to be so in the future. "

West Berlin Senate and Press

Representatives of the House of Representatives and the governing mayor published statements in the event of deaths expressing their indignation about the dead, the wall and the conditions in the GDR. In some cases, the West Berlin Senate asked the responsible American , British or French city commanders to lodge a protest with the Soviet authorities. West Berlin politicians used the term "by the end of the 1960s of shame " or "wall of shame" to refer to the wall.

The representatives of the people also took over misrepresented incidents to the press and presented organs of the GDR as responsible. After Rudolf Müller had shot the border soldier Reinhold Huhn and fled through a self-dug tunnel to the west, Egon Bahr , then Senate spokesman, announced Müller if only chicken had done an " uppercut ".

The western press also took over Müller's misrepresentation and headlined “Trigger-happy Vopos killed their own posts”. In other cases, the press, particularly the tabloid segment , published reports in harsh language accusing the wall and those responsible. The headline of the tabloid newspaper BZ after Günter Litfin’s death: “Ulbricht's hunters turned into murderers!” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote of the “brutal cold-bloodedness” of the border guards.

Federal Republic of Germany

In the beginning, federal politics regularly commented on deaths at the Wall. In the speech on the Day of German Unity in 1962, Konrad Adenauer condemned the shots at the Wall and named names of those who had died. In the course of the New Ostpolitik of the cabinet of Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt , who was Governing Mayor of Berlin from 1957 to 1966, behavior at the federal level changed from 1969 onwards. There was a greater linguistic reluctance to comment on the Berlin Wall and the dead in order not to jeopardize the rapprochement with the GDR. The German government saw the dead from the Wall as a burden for internal German relations. There were demands to abolish the central registration office of the state justice administrations in Salzgitter , which was set up in November 1961 to record known crimes in the GDR, in order to improve relations within Germany.

Even after a wave of protests after several natural deaths at border controls in 1983, the official statements of the Federal Government were mostly cautious, while clear demands were made in negotiations with the GDR behind closed doors. In June 1983, Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl commented on the cases:

“The death of two people affected us all deeply. He has brought the problems of tough border controls back into the public consciousness. "

- Helmut Kohl : State of the Union report on June 26, 1983

Legal processing

During the division of Germany

During the division of Germany, border guards in the GDR were legally unmolested. They had performed their service in the interests of the GDR government and the judiciary. On the western side, the Berlin public prosecutor's office and the central registration office in Salzgitter started investigations, but these were mostly directed against unknown persons in the GDR and could not be prosecuted during the division of Germany. There was no cooperation between the authorities of the two German states or even extraditions. There have been isolated cases against perpetrators who fled to the West. Because of the death of the border soldier Ulrich Steinhauer , there was a trial against the deserter in 1981, which ended with a prison sentence of six years under the application of juvenile criminal law. Rudolf Müller, who shot and killed the border soldier Reinhold Huhn in 1962 when he was taking his family out of the GDR through a tunnel, was only charged after the fall of the Berlin Wall. According to Müller, another border guard was responsible for the death.

After the end of the GDR

The leadership of the GDR, including Honecker, Mielke, Krenz and Stoph, at the parade for the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall

The legal processing of the wall shots took place after German reunification in the “Politburo” and “Wall rifle trials” and was completed in autumn 2004. Those responsible included the Chairman of the State Council Erich Honecker , his successor Egon Krenz , the members of the National Defense Council Erich Mielke , Willi Stoph , Heinz Keßler , Fritz Streletz and Hans Albrecht , the SED district chief von Suhl and some generals such as the head of the Border troops (1979–1990), Colonel General Klaus-Dieter Baumgarten .

The prohibition of retroactivity , Article 103 (2) of the Basic Law, was restricted by a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of October 24, 1996 (2 BvR 1851/94) in the event that the state seriously disregarded the human rights generally recognized by the international law community . This decision made possible the trials against the alleged wall shooters. In 112 proceedings, 246 people had to answer before the Berlin Regional Court as shooters or those involved in the crime. For about half of the defendants, the trials ended in acquittal . The court sentenced a total of 132 defendants to imprisonment or suspended sentences. These included 10 members of the SED leadership, 42 senior military personnel and 80 former border soldiers in team ranks. 19 proceedings with 31 defendants were pending before the Neuruppin Regional Court, which ended with suspended sentences for 19 gunmen. For Walter Kittel's death , which was judged to be murder , the murderer was given the longest prison sentence of 10 years. In general, the gunmen received suspended sentences of between 6 and 24 months, while the higher the level of responsibility, the higher the sentences.

In August 2004, Hans-Joachim Böhme and Werner Lorenz were sentenced to suspended sentences as former Politburo members. The last trial against GDR border guards ended on November 9, 2004 - exactly 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - with a guilty verdict.

Political evaluation after German reunification

After reunification, the executive committee of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), legal successor of the SED, commented on the deaths on the 40th anniversary of the building of the Wall in 2001 and declared: “There is no justification for the dead on the wall.” Through the merger of the PDS and WASG formed the party Die Linke in 2007 . The Left commented on the people who died in the Wall as follows: "The shots at the Wall at their own citizens who wanted to leave their state represent a violation of elementary human rights and cannot be justified by anything."

State of research

Data collection during the division of Germany

Various authorities in West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany gathered information about people who perished on the inner-German border and on the border with West Berlin during the division of Germany. In the West Berlin police, the state security department was responsible for registering known incidents. The records differentiate between people who perished on the outer border of West Berlin (80 cases), unclear cases (including 5 possible victims of the Berlin Wall) and border soldiers who were shot (7 cases). Another state agency was the central registration office of the state justice administrations in Salzgitter, which was also commissioned to collect evidence of completed or attempted acts of killing in the GDR. In 1991 she published the “Salzgitter Report” with the names of 78 victims. The data were considered provisional because the registration office had no access to the archives of the GDR. Both bodies mainly listed incidents that could be observed from West Berlin or of which either refugees or defected border guards reported.

Investigations after the end of the GDR

With German reunification, various organizations and individuals began to research the history of the victims of the Wall. These included government agencies such as the Central Investigation Group for Government and Association Crime (ZERV) as well as scientific projects and various book authors. The ZERV compared the data from the central registration office in Salzgitter with finds in GDR archives and in 2000 recorded a total of 122 suspected deaths by GDR organs on the border with West Berlin. This list was a preliminary investigation for the public prosecutor's offices in Berlin and Neuruppin , who then dealt with the legal processing. Two other projects, that of the Working Group on August 13 and the Center for Contemporary Historical Research, received special public attention.

Information from the working group August 13th
publication Number of victims
2006 262
2007 231
2008 222
2009 245
2011 455

The August 13th Working Group, which also runs the building at Checkpoint Charlie , is under the direction of the widow of the founder Rainer Hildebrandt , the artist Alexandra Hildebrandt , and collects information about victims on all external borders of the GDR including the Baltic Sea. No professional historians take part in the project. The results, which the working group calls preliminary results, will be presented annually at press conferences on August 13th. New cases are continually added to the lists and old ones deleted.

At the Center for Contemporary History Research (ZZF) in Potsdam, Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke headed a publicly funded research project from October 2005 to December 2007. The aim was to determine the exact number of Berlin Wall victims and to document the victims' stories in a publicly accessible manner. The project was funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education , Deutschlandradio and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media . The results of the project are published on the Internet at www.chronik-der-mauer.de and in the 2009 book Deathopfer on the Berlin Wall . The biography of the victims, their circumstances of death and the sources used are described in each case.

In the balance sheet of the project of August 7, 2008, it was shown that of the 575 cases examined, 136 meet the criteria of a Wall victim developed by the ZZF. Furthermore, 251 cases were identified in which people died in the vicinity of controls at border crossings in Berlin. The investigation into natural deaths has not yet been systematically completed. About a third of the reports from the transport police are no longer available, especially from the 1970s entire volumes are missing. The alternative evaluation of all daily reports from the border troops on what was happening in all monitored areas was not possible for economic reasons.

Controversy over the number of victims

Number of fatalities according to various investigations
organization was standing dead
Police chief in Berlin 1990 92
Central registration point in Salzgitter 1991 78
ZERV 2000 122
Working group August 13th 2009 245
Center for Contemporary History Research 2013 138

The exact number of victims is not known. Information from the various studies contradict each other in some cases, but are not always comparable because different definitions of the cases to be recorded are used. In addition, not all organizations regularly publish their figures or have finished their investigations with a preliminary status.

There is a public controversy between the two projects by Alexandra Hildebrandt (working group August 13) and Hans-Hermann Hertle (ZZF), the focus of which is the number of victims of the Wall. This is higher for the consortium than for the ZZF. According to Hertle, the publications of the working group also include victims for whom a connection with the border regime has not been proven. Since the interim review of the project in August 2006, Alexandra Hildebrandt has been accusing the ZZF project of deliberately reducing the number of victims for a more positive image of the GDR. The reason is the allocation of research funds by the Berlin Senate , which was led by a coalition of the SPD and Die Linke during the ZZF project .

In 2008, the working group announced on August 13th that after 1961 a total of 222 people died as a result of the Berlin Wall. Hertle doubted this information, as some of the people listed as dead verifiably survived their escape. In 2006 there were 36 survivors on the list. In addition, the list contains individual victims twice. Hans-Hermann Hertle rates the list of victims of the August 13th Working Group as “an extensive list of suspected cases” that “misses a scientifically verifiable standard”. Berlin's governing mayor, Klaus Wowereit, commented on the dispute on August 13, 2009 with "Every single death was too much."

In 2009 Hildebrandt gave the number of people who died at the Wall as 245. She counted it with unexplained corpse also finds in border waters and members of the border troops, suicide committed. According to their findings, a GDR officer who committed suicide was the first victim of the Wall and not Ida Siekmann. Furthermore, the findings of Hertle and Hildebrandt differ with regard to the persons who died of natural causes during a border control. Hertle, who had access to the incomplete files of the transport police, counts 251 of these cases, while Hildebrandt has 38.

Sources

Findings about victims of the Berlin Wall are mainly obtained in official and military archives of the Federal Republic and the GDR.

The files of the MfS, which are administered by the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU), are not fully accessible. Parts, especially from the later years, were destroyed in the course of the dissolution of the ministry, other parts have not yet been seen. In addition, because of the Stasi Records Act, many files cannot be viewed in the original, but only in partially anonymized excerpts. Since the law was amended in 2007, research projects can, under certain conditions, have direct access. The files of the border troops who were part of the NVA are in the Federal Archives-Military Archives .

When evaluating the files of border troops, state security and western authorities, according to Hertle, the "assessments, interests and constraints of the authorities in charge of the files and thus the respective power relations" must be taken into account. The families of the dead are another source, but can only rarely provide information about the direct events, as the MfS often provided them with incorrect information.

Selection criteria

Each investigation had its own criteria in choosing which cases were victims of the Wall. While the ZERV's investigations were mainly aimed at a legally usable debt, both the ZZF and the August 13th working group developed their own criteria that go beyond the question of legal guilt.

The ZFF assumed a refugee background or a temporal as well as spatial connection to the border regime. The ZZF developed five case groups from the cases examined:

  • People who were killed by armed organs of the GDR or by the border facilities during an attempt to escape,
  • People who died in an accident while attempting to escape in the border area,
  • Persons who died in the area of ​​the border and for whose death state organs of the GDR were responsible through action or failure,
  • Persons who died as a result of or as a result of actions by the border authorities,
  • Border soldiers who were killed in an escape operation in the border area.

The definition of the August 13th Working Group continues. With her, border guards of the GDR who committed suicide and unexplained body finds in border waters are among the victims of the Berlin Wall.

Commemoration

The White Crosses on the corner of Ebert and Scheidemannstrasse
The window of remembrance in the Berlin Wall Memorial shows photos of the dead
The monument to Peter Fechter in 1988
The Chapel of Reconciliation is part of the Berlin Wall Memorial
Memorial plaque for victims of the Berlin Wall without their own grave, in Berlin-Baumschulenweg

The victims of the Berlin Wall were commemorated publicly both during the division of Germany and after the end of the GDR. There are various memorial sites and commemorative events. Some streets and squares were named after the dead.

Memorials

In memory of the victims of the Wall, private initiatives and public bodies have been setting up memorials across the city of Berlin by resolution of the Berlin districts, the House of Representatives or the Federal Government since the early years of the Wall. These include monuments, crosses and memorial stones that were also viewed by politicians during state visits. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, parts of the monuments were removed along with the border fortifications. This particularly concerned memorials for fallen border guards of the GDR.

After each death, the private Berlin Citizens' Association, with the support of the West Berlin Senate, set up white painted wooden crosses at the scene of the incident from 1961. The association members continued this practice until they set up the permanent White Crosses memorial on the east side of the Reichstag building on the 10th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall , August 13, 1971 . Memorial crosses with the names and dates of death of various victims were attached to a fence in front of the wall. In the course of construction work due to the government moving to Berlin, the white crosses had to be moved from the east side of the Reichstag in 1995. The new location is on the west side of the building by a fence near the zoo . In 2003 Wolfgang Thierse opened a new memorial based on a design by Jan Wehberg with the same name on the bank of the Reichstag. The names of 13 people who died in the Wall are named on seven crosses inscribed on both sides. Another memorial of the citizens' association was on Bernauer Strasse.

Commemorative plaques set in sidewalks and other installations near the place where they died commemorate the victims of the Wall. At Checkpoint Charlie , the working group erected the Freedom Memorial on August 13, 2004 , with 1,067 crosses to commemorate the victims of the Berlin Wall and the inner-German border. The memorial had to be removed after about half a year because the property owner canceled the joint venture's lease.

In 1990, the action artist Ben Wagin and other artists set up the Parliament of Trees in the former death strip on the eastern bank of the Spree, opposite the Reichstag. 258 wall dead are listed on granite slabs. For some, besides the remark Unknown Man or Unknown Woman, only a date of death is given. The collection created in 1990 contains people who were later excluded as dead from the Wall. Black and white painted wall segments stand in the background. The memorial had to be reduced in size for the construction of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus . Another memorial was opened in 2005 in the basement of the Bundestag building. This uses wall segments from the original Parliament of Trees.

The Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Berlin established the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse in 1998 as a national monument. The memorial goes back to a design by the architects Kohlhoff & Kohlhoff. It was later expanded and today includes the Berlin Wall Documentation Center, a visitor center, the Chapel of Reconciliation , the Window of Remembrance with portraits of the victims of the Berlin Wall and a sixty-meter-long section of the former border fortifications, which is closed off at both ends with steel walls. The northern wall bears the inscription: “In memory of the division of the city from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 and in memory of the victims of communist tyranny”.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the construction of the Wall in 2011, the Berlin Wall Foundation erected 29 steles commemorating 50 victims of the Wall along the former border between West Berlin and the GDR. In addition to the 3.6 m high, orange-colored columns, information boards provide information about the people who died in the Wall. A planned stele in Sacrow for Lothar Hennig was initially not erected because Hennig is controversial because of his work as an IM for the MfS.

Memorial events

Various organizations - mostly associations or private initiatives - have held annual commemorative events in Berlin since the first deaths, mostly on the anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall. These were partially supported by the district offices of West Berlin or by the Senate minutes. Every August 13th between 8 and 9 pm there was the “hour of silence” for silent prayer. Since August 13, 1990, the state of Berlin has been commemorating the dead at the Peter-Fechter-Kreuz in Zimmerstrasse near Checkpoint Charlie every year. There are also a number of other memorial services at different locations. On the day the Berlin Wall was built, memorial events for the victims and protests against the Berlin Wall also took place abroad.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Fatalities at the Berlin Wall  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Fatalities at the Berlin Wall  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berlin Wall Memorial | The Berlin Wall | Fatalities. In: www.berliner-mauer-gedenkstaette.de. Retrieved May 20, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 9 f .
  3. ^ A b c Robert P. Grathwol, Donita M. Moorhus: American Forces in Berlin: Cold War Outpost, 1945-1994 . ISBN 978-0-7881-2504-1 , p. 112
  4. ↑ a b Jürgen Ritter, Peter Joachim Lapp: The limit. A German building . 1997, p. 167.
  5. ↑ a b c d Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 18th f .
  6. ↑ Peter Kreitlow's biography at chronik-der-mauer.de
  7. ↑ Research project “The victims of the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989”: Balance sheet 2008 ( Memento from September 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
  8. ^ A b Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 471 f .
  9. ↑ a b c Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 474 ff .
  10. ↑ a b biography of Peter Fechter at chronik-der-mauer.de
  11. ↑ a b c Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 21st f .
  12. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 22nd f .
  13. ↑ Major 2009, p. 147
  14. ↑ quoted from Hertle, 2009, p. 21
  15. ↑ a b c Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 16 f .
  16. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 23 .
  17. ↑ a b c Edgar Wolfrum: The wall . In: Étienne François, Hagen Schulze: German places of remembrance - Volume 1 . 2003, CH Beck, ISBN 3-406-50987-8 , pp. 386f.
  18. ^ A b c Arne Hofmann : The emergence of détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik . Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-38637-1 . P. 61f.
  19. ↑ Peter Göring's biography at chronik-der-mauer.de
  20. ↑ exemplarily presented in the biography of Çetin Mert at chronik-der-mauer.de
  21. ↑ a b Ulrich Lappenküper: The German-French Relations, 1949-1963: 1949-1958, Volume 1 . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2001, ISBN 3-486-56522-2 . P. 1738.
  22. ↑ Get him out . In: Der Spiegel . No.  3 , 1970, p. 31-33 ( online ).
  23. ^ Arne Hofmann: The emergence of détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik . Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-38637-1 . P. 177
  24. ↑ Fatality Bernd Lünser on chronik-der-mauer.de
  25. ↑ I called: "Don't shoot!" - He shot anyway. on chronik-der-mauer.de
  26. ↑ Peter Göring's biography on chronik-der-mauer.de
  27. ^ RIAS report on the shooting at the refugee Michael Meyer in Stallschreiberstrasse , September 14, 1964. Archive Deutschlandradio, broadcast: Die Zeit im Funk . Reporter: Helmut Fleischer, Erich Nieswandt on chronik-der-mauer.de
  28. ↑ spiegel.de / one day: "Let my people go!"
  29. ↑ Martin Luther King / Michael Meyer on Gedenkenafeln-in-berlin.de
  30. ↑ Heinz Schmidt's biography on chronik-der-mauer.de
  31. ↑ a b c Georg Stötzel, Martin Wengeler, Karin Böke 1995: Controversial terms: history of public language use in the Federal Republic of Germany. Volume 4 of Language, Politics, Public , p. 300ff.
  32. ^ Roman Grafe: The border through Germany - a chronicle from 1945 to 1990 . 2002, Siedler Verlag, ISBN 3-88680-744-4 . P. 120
  33. ↑ Major 2009, p. 146
  34. ↑ Biography of Eduard Wroblewski at chronik-der-mauer.de
  35. ↑ Major 2009, p. 148
  36. ^ Biography of Siegfried Widera at chronik-der-mauer.de
  37. ↑ Lothar Loewe : The class enemy comes in the evening . In: Der Spiegel . No.  36 , 1977, pp. 132 ( online ).
  38. ↑ a b Götz Aly : The truth about Reinhold Huhn . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 23, 1999.
  39. ^ Biography of Günter Litfin at chronik-der-mauer.de
  40. ↑ Christian Buß : Documentary “If the dead disturb” - On the wall, on the lookout . In: Spiegel Online , August 1, 2007.
  41. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 476 .
  42. ↑ Ulrich Steinhauer's biography at chronik-der-mauer.de
  43. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  44. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 24 f .
  45. ^ A b Hansgeorg Bräutigam: The dead on the Berlin Wall and on the inner-German border and the Federal German judiciary. Attempt to take stock. , Germany Archive 37, pp. 969-976.
  46. ↑ The PDS has irrevocably freed itself from the Stalinism of the SED. Declaration by the party executive of the PDS on August 13, 2001. In: Selected documents of the PDS on historical-political questions. die-linke.de, July 23, 2001, accessed on June 21, 2020 .
  47. ↑ What is DIE LINKE's position on the “Wall”? In: Questions and Answers on Dealing with History. die-linke.de, accessed on June 21, 2020 .
  48. ↑ a b c Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 12 f .
  49. ↑ Hans Sauer, Hans-Otto Plumeyer: The Salzgitter Report. The central registration office reports on crimes in the SED state.
  50. ↑ Christoph Stollowsky: Fewer Wall victims than previously assumed . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 9, 2006.
  51. ^ A b Thomas Rogalla: Hildebrandt: Historians work on behalf of the PDS . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 11, 2006.
  52. ↑ Werner van Bebber: Shot, drowned, bleeding to death . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 12, 2007.
  53. ↑ a b c Thomas Rogalla: The living dead from Checkpoint Charlie . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 13, 2008.
  54. ↑ a b c Patricia Hecht, Matthias Schlegel: Different results: How many victims were there on the wall? In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 11, 2009.
  55. ↑ Sabine Flatau: Minute's silence throughout Berlin on the 50th anniversary . In: Berliner Morgenpost , August 10, 2011.
  56. ↑ a b number of victims and project description at chronik-der-mauer.de
  57. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 14 .
  58. ↑ 48th anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall - Commemoration of the victims of the German division ( Memento from August 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) , tagesschau.de, August 13, 2009.
  59. ^ A b Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989. A biographical manual . Ch.links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 , p. 26th f .
  60. ↑ Ceremonial handover of the memorial site “Wall Crosses” . Urban development Berlin, June 17, 2003
  61. ↑ a b Annette Kaminsky: Places of Remembrance: Memorial signs, memorials and museums on the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR , p. 105.
  62. ↑ Michael Sontheimer : Second death . In: Der Spiegel . No.  27 , 2005, pp. 50 ( online ).
  63. ↑ Annette Kaminsky: Places of Remembrance: Memorial signs, memorials and museums of the dictatorship in the Soviet occupation zone and GDR , p. 79ff.
  64. ↑ Thorsten Metzner: Steles for Wall Dead - The victim who was an informant . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 8, 2011.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on May 26, 2010 in this version .