Rainer Gneiser
Rainer Gneiser (born January 10, 1944 in Kreuzburg , † July 28, 1964 in Potsdam ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . He drowned while trying to escape from the GDR in the Havel .
Gneiser was the son of Wilhelm Gneiser and his wife Ruth. After fleeing and being expelled , he grew up in Freiberg . After completing secondary school, he did a craft training. At the age of 18, he tried to escape from the GDR for the first time in the spring of 1962. The attempt to cross the Baltic Sea into the free west failed. He was arrested and sentenced to ten months in prison on April 16, 1962 by the Freiberg District Court for " attempting to leave the GDR illegally " .
From the summer of 1963, he and his friend Norbert Wolscht planned to flee the GDR. Together they trained to swim and built diving equipment .
On July 25, 1964, on the pretext of wanting to camp, they drove away on a motorcycle from Freiberg towards Potsdam. Presumably they wanted to dive from the Tiefen See between Potsdam and Babelsberg under water along the Havel to West Berlin. GDR border troops found Norbert Wolscht's body on July 28th. Rainer Gneiser's body was found a week later on the Babelsberg bank of the Havel. The autopsies of the bodies revealed that Norbert Wolscht died of carbon dioxide poisoning at 2 a.m. on July 28 . The self-made regulator did not filter the carbon dioxide properly. The investigation of the People's Police District Office in Potsdam ended with the result that the two died in an accident.
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 | Gneisser, Rainer |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 10, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kreuzburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 28, 1964 |
| Place of death | Potsdam |