Order to shoot

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term orders to shoot the instructions to be border guards of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) combined, at the inner-German border to refugees sharp shooting. The general knowledge of their application gave the barrier measures of the GDR at its borders, which were aimed at refugees, the necessary credibility. The instructions existed in various forms from 1960 to 1989 and in some cases also contradicted current GDR law. During the briefing on the firearms usage regulations, the border guards were told that attempts to escape should be prevented in any case and by all means. The practice was not formally legalized until 1982 by § 27 of theBorder law . SED politicians and the GDR military have denied the existence of a “shooting order” in court. Shootings at the border were kept secret from the public, but internally rewarded. From April 1989, the order to shoot was suspended or the use of firearms was restricted to threatening the border guards' own lives.

Internal shooting orders

Example: Heinz-Josef Große
The picture shows the inner-German border between Thuringia and Hesse. From the border museum Schifflersgrund (near Bad Sooden-Allendorf ) part of the former border is preserved there. You can see the border fence secured with SM-70 mines (single-row metal mesh fence) and the control strip in front of it (evidence security strip). The actual border was above the now wooded slope along the guard rails.

In the back of the open area an inconspicuous cross can be seen, which marks the place of death of the 34-year-old renovation worker Heinz-Josef Große , who died on March 29, 1982 in an attempted escape from the GDR directly in Schifflersgrund. As a civilian, he had worked right on the border for years. That day he carried out earthworks. When the guarding border guards had left in an off-road vehicle, Grosse drove to a point on the border fence where he could lay the boom of his front loader over the fence secured with SM-70 mines. He climbed onto the boom, jumped over the fence, and tried to reach the boundary line over a steep bank. The two border guards hurried back noticed the vehicle and the fugitive. Targeted shots followed warning shots. Heinz-Josef Große was fatally shot in the back. The burial took place in his home parish Thalwend . In the censored obituary notice, no formulations could be used that would allow conclusions to be drawn about an unnatural death.

Before the legal justification of the shooting order in GDR law, there were only internal instructions to the armed forces deployed to guard the border. In some cases, these instructions differed considerably from the later legal basis.

Shooting orders from politically responsible persons

Order No. 39/60 of June 28, 1960 of the Minister of the Interior relaxed the comparatively restrictive requirements for the use of firearms that had been in effect until then. So could

" Firearms may be used in compliance with the relevant legal provisions [...] When spies, saboteurs, provocateurs and other criminals are arrested, if they oppose arrest or flee and there is no possibility of arrest by someone else bring about qualified action. "

After the wall was built in August 1961, the order to shoot became even more explicit. At a briefing of the "Central Staff" set up by the Politburo on September 20, 1961, the head of this staff, Erich Honecker , who was also the Central Committee Secretary for Security, said:

“ Firearms are to be used against traitors and border violators. Measures are to be taken so that criminals can be caught in the 100 m exclusion zone . Observation and shooting fields are to be created in the exclusion zone. "

From October 6, 1961, there was an order from the then GDR Defense Minister, Army General Heinz Hoffmann , which obliged the GDR border troops to use firearms immediately after shouting and warning shots and to destroy refugees if they could not be arrested in any other way. In a speech that was recorded on film, Hoffmann said in August 1964:

“ Anyone who doesn't respect our limit will feel the bullet. "

Erich Honecker declared on May 3, 1974 at the 45th session of the National Defense Council in his function as chairman:

" The aim must be that border breaches are not allowed at all [...] a perfect field of fire must be guaranteed everywhere [...] as before, firearms must be used ruthlessly when attempting to breach borders, and it is the comrades who use the firearm successfully have to commend. "

Indeed, it was customary to commend border guards who had prevented border breaches by shooting refugees . Special leave was also granted and cash bonuses were paid.

The Minister for National Defense Heinz Keßler claimed in an interview in 1988: “It never - never! - A shooting order was given. ”But it was not until the international protests against the shooting of Chris Gueffroy at the inner-German border in February 1989 that the use of firearms against refugees was actually ceased in early April 1989 by an internal order from the Chief of Staff and Deputy Minister for National Defense, Fritz Streletz , exposed. The instruction stated that the border guards would only have to use the firearm if their own life was threatened, but no longer to prevent border breaches. Fritz Streletz argued: “If the Minister for National Defense says that there is no order to shoot, then you are not allowed to shoot at the state border either or the Defense Minister loses credibility. [...] "It is important to note that" [l] it is better to let a person run away than to use the firearm in the current political situation. "However:" Under no circumstances should a campaign be started to prevent us from shooting. "

Instructions to GDR border soldiers by military superiors

In practice, the GDR border guards accepted the death of refugees at least approvingly. The military superiors expressly encouraged the border guards to use firearms. Even during their training, the border guards should be trained to "hate" against "border violators":

“ The irreconcilable hatred of imperialism, its mercenaries and all anti-socialist elements is to be instilled more strongly. The attitude towards border violators as the enemy of socialism and every border soldier must be developed consistently. "

Since the 1970s at the latest, there have been documented cases in which GDR border guards were instructed by their superiors to “destroy border violators” immediately before starting guard duty, during so-called gates . The death of a "border violator" is more likely to be accepted than a successful border breach. After the creation of a legal basis in 1982, the order to shoot was given verbally to the border troops every day during the gattering: “Border violators are to be arrested or destroyed.” Depending on foreign and domestic political events, the wording of the gating could differ on a daily basis. For example, during Erich Honecker's state visit to the Federal Republic of Germany and in the last few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the order was: “Use of the firearm only if you desert or if your own life is at risk” . In this way, in the event of a flight, political upset should be avoided due to the possible death of the refugee.

Order to shoot from the operations company of Main Division I “NVA and Border Troops” of the MfS

A few years after the fall of the Wall, in 1993, the Stasi records authority discovered an instruction which contained an order to shoot, also against women and children. The service instruction of December 3, 1974 was valid for the “ Einsatzkompanie ” of Main Department I “ NVA and Border Troops” of the MfS , but had no official letterhead and no signature, which is why neither the authorship nor a hierarchy can be identified.

The task of the special unit was to prevent desertions in the regular border troop units. Between 1971 and 1974 alone, 144 soldiers fled to the West, a total of around 2800. The problem arose because the personnel of the border troops consisted largely of conscripts who did their eighteen months of basic military service there or who served as non-commissioned officers on a temporary basis. Despite thorough scrutiny, one could never be certain about their actual motivation and susceptibility to thoughts of flight. At least nine border guards were shot by deserters, see deaths among GDR border guards .

Assignment […]
1. Prevention of desertions
Recognizing intentions to desert in order to ensure that they are prevented with all the consequences that arise from it. In order to prevent attempted desertions during the border service, it is necessary that you recognize and thwart this in good time. For this reason you are not allowed to part with your weapon and the functionality has to be checked before the start of the border service. If necessary, you have to use the firearm consistently in order to find or liquidate the traitor. [...]
Order to shoot from the operations company of Main Division I “NVA and Border Troops” of the MfS, page 3
2. Prevention of border breaches
It is your duty to use your lone warrior and Chekist abilities in such a way that you break through the ruse of the border violator, put him in or liquidate him in order to thwart the border violation he has planned. Act carefully and consistently, as practice repeatedly proves the dangerousness and underhandedness of the traitors.
Do not hesitate to use the firearm, even if the border breaches are made with women and children, which the traitors have often made use of. [...]

The special unit was founded in December 1968 on the orders of Karl Kleinjung and initially consisted of ten, in 1969 of 30, and later of 50 to 70 men. In 1985 it was dissolved because the border troops now had their own unit with a corresponding task profile. The operations company was recruited from graduates of the Border Troops NCO School VI in Perleberg , who were seen as particularly “class-conscious” . These graduates were trained for six months at the Stasi in Hagenow after completing their training . They had the status of full-time unofficial employees in special operations (HIME), but continued to appear as regular members of the border troops.

Immediately after the discovery of the Instructions informed the Stasi documentation authorities , the Department of State Crime in the Berlin public prosecutor . Another find (1996) was handed over to the Berlin Regional Court. The order was published in 1997 in the book GDR History in Documents and issued until 2004 in the information and documentation center of the Stasi records authority.

In June 2007, in an archived IM process in the Magdeburg branch office of the Stasi records authority, another identical copy of this order, dated October 1, 1973, was found for that special unit (signature “BStU, ZA, AIM , 713/76, Bl. 2f. "). In mid-August 2007, this find was made public again, although the exact signature was already printed in the above-mentioned volume of documents, and was the main topic in many media for a few days (also because the Stasi records authority initially presented it as a completely new document and from a "sensational find" spoke).

In the course of this rediscovery, Hubertus Knabe pointed out that it was not a general order to fire, but a special instruction for special cases. The federal commissioner for the Stasi files, Marianne Birthler , also made it clear that - unlike in some headlines - it is not about the shooting order for GDR border troops: “It is not an order addressed to the border guards, but an order to a special Stasi unit, which should prevent the desertion of soldiers by all means. "

Some politicians have called for further investigations. The former prosecutor in the wall rifle trials , Christoph Schaefgen , commented on this in such a way that the shooting order would have had no further effects on the trials he was conducting . Confronted with the find, the former state council chairman Egon Krenz , who had been convicted in all instances for his co-responsibility for the GDR border regime, again denied the existence of the "shooting orders": "It has an order to kill, or as you call it, a 'shooting order'. , not given. I don't know that from files, I know that from my own experience. Such an order would have contradicted the laws of the GDR. "

In the same month another, now the fourth, copy of this order was found. A special feature of these instructions is that their receipt is acknowledged on the same.

Statistics on the victims of the shooting order

During the work on the Berlin Wall, the 24-year-old Günter Litfin was shot on August 24, 1961 and, five days later, the 27-year-old Roland Hoff while trying to swim across a canal in West Berlin . According to the Central Investigation Team for Government and Association Crime, at least 421 people were killed on the inner-German border . The Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie , on the other hand, assumes that up to 1245 were killed. So far, 136 people have been reliably recorded as victims of the border regime at the Berlin Wall . The number of direct victims of the order to shoot is significantly lower because the number of fatalities also includes the numerous people who were killed attempting to escape without the direct influence of the border security systems, as well as border soldiers who were shot by refugees or escape helpers.

Consequences of the order to fire

Fatal shots at the inner-German border

With the order to shoot, the escape from the GDR became a life-threatening risk, as "border violators" were now being shot at. In order to prevent border crossings, the killing of the refugees was deliberately aimed at or at least accepted. The example of Roland Hoff , who was shot in August 1961, illustrates this:

“ The security officer employed in this section […] and the guards […] had the task of securing the border work along the embankment. 40 workers from Gum (sewer and sewerage works from Potsdam) were employed for this work. Ofw. […] Noticed around 2 p.m. how a person jumped into the sewer about 70 m away from him. Upon an immediate call and warning shot This person did not react. They swam in the direction of the WB. Thereupon Ofw. […] gave the order to fire the target shots. Ofw. […] shot 18 rounds from his MPi in short bursts […]. By additional ones used in this section For forces of the combat group, a member of the KG also fired a target shot. [...] The target shots were fired when H. had covered about 15 m swimming in the canal. [...] After the target shots, the person immediately sank into the canal and dived A briefcase came to light on the surface of the water, which [...] was salvaged by a comrade of the KG. "

Reaction of the GDR population

There was some opposition from the population against the order to shoot and its exercise. An East Berlin citizen of the GDR wrote to the Greater Berlin Magistrate in May 1973:

“ I hereby express my protest against the killing of a refugee on the evening of April 27, 1973 while fleeing to Berlin (West) near the Reichstag building. I regard this killing as an abhorrent act of inhumanity, incompatible with the principles of human dignity and freedom. I call on you to guarantee the right to emigrate and to ensure that human rights are respected, as set out in the United Nations Convention on Civil and Political Rights of December 16, 1966. "

Concerns about the reputation of the GDR in (western) foreign countries

In 1989 Erich Mielke stated that the GDR had suffered “considerable political damage” from the shots at the Wall. According to Mielke, the solution to the problem was not to withdraw the order to shoot. Rather, "marketing" the shots at the border "in the opponent's media" must be prevented by shooting better and thereby preventing border breaches even more consistently:

“ I want to say something at all, comrades. If you're already shooting, then you just have to do it in such a way that the person in question doesn't get away, but then he just has to stay with us. What kind of thing is it, what is it, firing 70 shots, and he runs over there, and they're doing a huge campaign. You're right. Man, if someone shoots so bad, they should run a campaign. "

Legal basis of the shooting order

Firearms use regulation, § 27 of the border law of the GDR

The "Border Service Regulations" officially applied to service at the border and the "Firearms Use Regulations" for the use of firearms. The regulations prior to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 provided for the use of firearms only for the border guards' own protection, for self-defense or for general security purposes.

On May 1, 1982, the law on the state border of the German Democratic Republic (Grenzgesetz) came into force, which contained provisions on the border regime in Section 27. The border guards then had the task: "To secure the state border of the GDR, not to allow border violations, and to prevent provocations from spreading to the territory of the GDR."

According to this, the firearm was the ultimate measure of the use of force against people, its use only justified if other measures, such as physical violence against objects or animals, did not bring the desired result. Before firearms use was a warning call "Stop, border guards, stop!" Dispense. If the warning call was not heeded, a warning shot had to be fired in the air. If the warning shot was not followed either, there was a warning call “Stop! Border guard, stop or I'll shoot! ” . If this call was not heeded either, the border violator should be stopped with a targeted shot in his legs. According to Section 27 (4b) of the Border Act, firearms were not to be used against persons who, on the external impression, were children, young people or women.

With the inclusion of these regulations in the Border Act, the practice of shooting at refugees at the inner-German border gained legal status for the first time. Previously given instructions to border guards, however, were only passed on orally by superiors and had no legal basis.

The wording of the provisions of the GDR, insofar as they regulated the use of firearms on the inner-German border, largely corresponded to the provisions of the Federal Republic in Sections 10–13 UZwG and Sections 15–17 UZwGBw . The extensive alignment in the formulation was deliberately chosen to bring the GDR out of criticism and to disguise the unlawful state practice that continues unchanged.

Legal processing

Incompatibility of the order to fire and its execution with higher-ranking law

According to the European Court of Human Rights , the order to shoot and its execution at the time of the crime not only violated the principle of proportionality anchored in the GDR People's Police Act, but also higher-ranking GDR law . The constitution of the GDR guaranteed the right to life as an inalienable attribute of human beings in Art. 19 Paragraph 2 and Art. 30 Paragraph 1 and 2. In addition, the border regime violated the GDR Criminal Code (Sections 112 and 213 StGB-GDR in conjunction with Art. Section 22 (2) StGB-GDR).

In the so-called first wall rifle ruling , the BGH rejected existing justifications for the use of firearms on the Berlin Wall and the inner-German border in the state practice of the GDR as incompatible with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (IPbpR). In addition, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on March 22, 2001:

" The use of the order to shoot at the inner-German border therefore constitutes a violation of the protection of life under international law ... which was internationally recognized by the GDR at the time of the crime (Art. 6 Pact) ...
The border regime and the" order to shoot "could also be a violation the right to freedom of movement. The IPbpR ratified by the GDR guarantees the right to freedom of movement in Art. 12, Paragraph 2, as well as Art. 2, Paragraph 2 of the 4th ZP-ECHR. Here, too, the Court took the view that the exception clauses relied on by the applicants were irrelevant. He argues that preventing almost the entire population from leaving their state was by no means necessary to protect the security of the state or other interests ...
After all, it was the way in which the GDR enforced the travel ban on its nationals and violated this ban punished, incompatible with another right guaranteed in the pact, namely the right to life guaranteed in Art. 6, if this has been interfered with ... Thus the court finds that the border system, in particular the order to shoot, is also a violation of that enshrined in the pact The human right to freedom of movement. "

Judgments against wall protectors and GDR politicians

The Federal Constitutional Court introduced in 1996 established the criminal responsibility of politicians and commanders and soldiers of the Border Troops of the GDR. On the basis of this legal perspective, around 120 border soldiers were sentenced to probation and imprisonment for manslaughter or murder in the so-called wall rifle trials. The Politburo members Egon Krenz, Schabowski and Günther Kleiber were the so-called Politburo process condemned in 1997 because of the fatal shots to long prison sentences. Erich Honecker was charged in 1992 with the order to shoot at the inner-German border, but the proceedings were discontinued due to his poor health.

Justification of the legal prosecution of those responsible before German courts

According to the Basic Law (Art. 103, Paragraph 2), an act “may only be punished if the criminal liability was determined by law before the act was committed” (so-called retroactive prohibition ). In its decisions, the Federal Court of Justice has therefore also taken a position on the question of whether it is lawful to prosecute politicians and border guards for an act which, at least in the opinion of the defendants' defense, complied with the law applicable in the GDR. First of all, the BGH emphasizes that the legal norms applicable in the GDR at the time of the offense could be interpreted in such a way that the order to shoot and its execution violated them (BGHSt 41, 101 (25)). However, if GDR law was interpreted in favor of the accused as if it had covered the order to shoot and its execution, the laws, ordinances and instructions justifying the order were ineffective from the start, as they obviously violated higher-ranking law (so-called Radbruch's formula ):

" A justification that gave priority to enforcing the ban on leaving the GDR over the right to life of people by allowing the willful killing of unarmed refugees is ineffective because of an obvious, intolerable violation of elementary rules of justice and of human rights protected by international law. "

Since the grounds of justification that existed in GDR law were possibly ineffective and the violation of the order to shoot against human rights was "obvious" and "unbearable", those responsible for the order to shoot and those who carried out the order could not invoke the prohibition of retroactive effects:

" If laws or state practice obviously and intolerably violate human rights protected under international law, those in power responsible for them and those who acted on their orders cannot appeal the criminal justice system enforced by the rule of law in response to the injustice committed to counter the non-retroactivity rule that they have adhered to existing standards. They could not trust that a future rule of law would continue to accept and not sanction the practice that violates human rights. Such trust cannot be considered worthy of protection within the meaning of Article 103, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law. In such a case, they must not invoke the principle that what was previously “right” cannot be wrong today. "

The legal literature of the nineties raised concerns about the applicability of Radbruch's formula, which was originally used for the legal appraisal of National Socialist crimes , to the shooting order. However, after considering these concerns, the BGH expressly stuck to its applicability to the legal processing of the shooting order.

literature

Web links

Commons : Shoot order  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Instructions for members of the special unit of the MfS within the border troops of the GDR (shooting order)  - sources and full texts

Court judgments

Others

Individual evidence

  1. ^ BStU, ZA, MfS-HA VI 1308, sheet 27. Cf. Klaus Schroeder, Der SED-Staat. Party, State and Society 1949–1990 , Munich / Vienna 1998, p. 295.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Rudolf Riemer: Germany divided in two 1961–1962. Munich 1995, p. 115 ff.
  3. ↑ Quoted from W. Filmer / H. Swan: victim of the wall. The Secret Logs of Death. Munich 1991, p. 379.
  4. ↑ A Mannheimer is considered the father of the shooting order at the GDR border . September 2, 2015. Retrieved September 15, 2015.
  5. ^ Matthias Judt (ed.), GDR history in documents , bpb, Bonn 1998, p. 468 f.
  6. ↑ Federal Court of Justice decision of August 7, 2001, paragraph 8
  7. ^ The time of September 30, 1988.
  8. ↑ New Germany from 1./2. October 1988, pp. 9/10.
  9. ^ BStU, ZA, MfS-HA VI 1308, sheet 27. Cf. Klaus Schroeder, Der SED-Staat. Party, State and Society 1949–1990 , Munich / Vienna 1998, p. 295.
  10. ↑ Klaus Marxen and Gerhard Werle , Criminal Justice and GDR Injustice , Vol. 2: Acts of Violence on the German-German Border , Part. 2, de Gruyter, Berlin 2002, p. 707 .
  11. ↑ Order No. 20/81 of the commander of Grenzregimes 1 for the first year of training 1982/82 of November 16, 1981, AdV. Quoted from Klaus Schroeder, Der SED-Staat. Party, State and Society 1949–1990 , Munich / Vienna 1998, p. 265.
  12. ↑ Federal Court of Justice ruling of August 7, 2001: Gating of soldiers at the inner-German border before the fatal use of firearms against an unarmed refugee according to the orders is punishable as aiding and abetting manslaughter
  13. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education with an explanatory video On the trail of a dictatorship: Who is to blame? - Order to shoot and dead from the wall
  14. ^ Contrasts from July 3, 1990: Who is to blame? - Order to shoot and dead from the wall , p. 4 and 5
  15. ^ Chronicle of the Wall (Center for Contemporary History Potsdam eV, Federal Agency for Civic Education and Deutschlandradio ): Hans-Hermann Hertle: "Prämien für Todesschützen". In April 1989 the GDR shooting order, which never existed, was clandestinely repealed [1999], copy.
  16. ↑ Head of the Stasi authorities: Source for shooting order difficult to determine ( Memento from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Schwäbische Zeitung Online.
  17. ↑ printed in: Matthias Judt (ed.), DDR history in documents, Bonn 1998, p. 469.
  18. ^ BStU copy of the shooting order
  19. ↑ Welt.de: The shooting order document was known for a long time
  20. ^ Matthias Judt (ed.), GDR history in documents, Bonn 1998, p. 469.
  21. ↑ Hubertus Knabe: Special instructions for special cases
  22. ^ Matthias Judt (ed.): GDR history in documents. Federal Agency for Civic Education / bpb, Bonn 1998, p. 464.
  23. ^ Matthias Judt (ed.): GDR history in documents. Bonn 1998, p. 537.
  24. ^ Erich Mielke: Presentation at the central service meeting of the MfS on April 28, 1989 (transcript). In: BStU, ZA, DSt 103 582, p. 124 f. Quoted from: Matthias Judt (Hrsg.): GDR history in documents. Bonn 1998, p. 480.
  25. ↑ Quoted from ibid.
  26. ↑ Erich Mielke: Presentation at the central service meeting of the MfS on April 28, 1989 (tape transcript). In: BStU, ZA, ZAIG TB 3. Quoted from: Matthias Judt (Hrsg.): GDR history in documents. Bonn 1998, p. 480.
  27. ↑ Regulations of the border troops of the GDR - Firearms use regulations
  28. ↑ Cf. DV III / 2 service regulation for the service of border guards of September 12, 1958, in: Riemer 1995, p. 100ff.
  29. ↑ Law on the State Border of the German Democratic Republic of March 25, 1982
  30. ↑ BVerfGE 95, 96, margin no. 146 ( "Protecting the Wall" ).
  31. ↑ Landgericht Berlin, judgment of August 25, 1997 - Az. (527) 25/2 Js 20/92 Ks (1/95) (“Politburo Trial”), cited above. according to Klaus Marxen / Gerhard Werle (eds.): Criminal justice and GDR injustice. Documentation , Volume 2: Violent acts on the German-German border. With the collaboration of Toralf Rummler and Petra Schäfter, Teilband 2, Berlin 2002, p. 715 .
  32. ↑ Violation of the GDR border regime against GDR law ( Memento from March 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  33. ↑ Legal opinion of the BGH ( Memento from March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  34. ^ Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights: Streletz, Keßler and Krenz ./. Germany, judgment of March 22, 2001 , edited by Friederike Brinkmeier ( memento of March 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ); quoted from: MenschenRechtsMagazin , issue 3/2001.
  35. ↑ Hans-Hermann Hertle, Maria Nooke: The victims of the Berlin Wall 1961-1989. A biographical manual. 2009, ISBN 3-86153-517-3 , p. 24 f.
  36. ↑ BGHSt 41, 101 (11)
  37. ↑ BGHSt 41, 101 (25)
  38. ↑ BGHSt 41, 101 (16-27)