Roland Hoff
Roland Hoff (born March 19, 1934 in Hanover , † August 29, 1961 in Berlin ) was a victim of the Berlin Wall . He was shot while trying to escape in the Teltow Canal 16 days after the border between West Berlin and the GDR was closed and the wall was built .
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The 27-year-old pipelayer moved to the GDR in June 1961. His family continued to live in the Hanover area. In the GDR he initially lived in the interim camp in Barby . He was assigned an apartment and a job in Forst in Niederlausitz, but was already thinking about returning to the West. After the wall was built on August 13, Hoff spoke out against closing the border in his company and was dismissed. Instead of appearing before an arbitration tribunal, he left for Berlin on August 29th.
In Teltow he mingled with a group of workers who were clearing the embankment under the watchful eye of the People's Police . He jumped into the canal at around 2 p.m. and swam towards the border that was here in the center of the canal ( 52 ° 24 ′ 16 ″ N , 13 ° 16 ′ 8 ″ E ). Four border police officers opened fire on him. He was fatally hit in the head and sank. Some of the workers then protested the police and were arrested. Police officers and journalists gathered on the West Berlin bank to take pictures of the shooters. A GDR leaflet said about the incident: “A henchman of the cold warriors could not complete his mission. A louse on the body of our workers 'and peasants' state was crushed before it could bite. ”In newspaper reports, Hoff and Günter Litfin, who was shot shortly before, were portrayed as criminals.
The public prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into the unknown perpetrators and offered a reward of 10,000 DM. A wanted poster was posted along the border. After the fall of the Wall , three of the riflemen, whose names were known from defected border guards, were brought to justice. Since the GDR did not publish Roland Hoff's name, his relatives only found out about his fate after the fall of the Wall. A memorial stone on the West Berlin bank commemorates the dead refugee.
literature
- Werner Filmer , Heribert Schwan : Victims of the Wall. The Secret Logs of Death . Bertelsmann, Munich 1991, ISBN 978-3-570-02319-8 , pp. 77 .
- Christine Brecht : Roland Hoff , in: The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961–1989 , Links, Berlin 2009, pp. 40–42.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Flyer "Der Impuls", September 4, 1961, in: StA Neuruppin, Az. 61 Js 23/95, Vol. 5, Bl. 42-44
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hoff, Roland |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | probably the third victim of the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 19, 1934 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanover |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 29, 1961 |
| Place of death | Berlin |