Max Willi Sahmland
Max Willi Sahmland (born March 28, 1929 in Berlin ; † January 27, 1967 there ) died on the Berlin Wall .
Life
After leaving school, Max Sahmland began working in agriculture . Later he worked as a blacksmith in the heavy machinery industry in Wildau. At the beginning of 1961 he moved to West Berlin without his family , but later returned to East Berlin . His marriage failed and he began to develop a drinking problem. This leads to further problems. In 1964 he was sentenced to a year and a half imprisonment for causing a traffic accident . Another conviction came in early 1967 after he beat his fiancée. In order to avoid the renewed imprisonment and the subsequent placement in a drinking institution , he decided to flee the GDR with his fiancée .
Their first two escape attempts failed without being discovered. Before the third attempt, they confided in a friend who decided to flee as well. On the evening of January 26th, they set off on bicycles to Zeuthen train station and from there took the S-Bahn to Berlin-Adlershof , where they went to the border area. Max Sahmland had worked in a sewage treatment plant in the area. The weather was bad that night. Visibility was made worse by wind and rain. Creeping through a ditch, they approached the rear border fence, which Max Sahmland cut with wire cutters. The women lagged behind a little. When Max Sahmland tried to get over the signal fence , he triggered the alarm at around 2.30 a.m. He was hit by a watchtower. Hit by a bullet, Max Sahmland continued his escape and reached the Teltow Canal . There he went into the water to flee by swimming. The border guards chased him and shot him when he reached the West Berlin half of the canal. Two workers wanted to come to his aid, but they themselves sought cover from the shots of the border guards. When the police and fire brigade arrived on site, there was no trace of Max Sahmland. His body was recovered from the Teltow Canal on March 8, 1967. He had been hit several times, including one shot through the lung.
His companions, startled by the gunfire, sneaked back into the GDR's hinterland and returned unmolested to their apartments in East Berlin. They were arrested the next day and later sentenced to prison terms for so-called " escape from the republic ". Max Sahmland was buried in West Berlin. The mother was refused entry by the Ministry of State Security .
The alleged gunman stood in 2000 in a wall shooter trial before the Berlin district court , which acquitted him for lack of evidence.
literature
- Hans-Hermann Hertle , Maria Nooke : The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961 - 1989. A biographical handbook. Edited by the Center for Contemporary History Potsdam and the Berlin Wall Foundation. Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sahmland, Max Willi |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 28, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 27, 1967 |
| Place of death | Berlin |