Walter Kittel (victim of the wall)
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Walter Kittel (born May 21, 1942 in Kölleda ; † October 18, 1965 in Kleinmachnow ) was a German car mechanic and politically active member of the FDJ. He is a victim of the Berlin Wall . After a failed attempt to escape, he was murdered by a commander of the GDR border troops .
Life
On the evening of October 17, 1965, Walter Kittel met Eberhardt K., whom he had briefly known, in a restaurant in Teltow . In their conversation, both expressed their wish to flee to the West and later decided, sitting in a bus to Kleinmachnow , to try to escape immediately. Walter Kittel, who lived near the border, suggested a position that he knew from observations. They brought tools and a sketch of the border area from Kittel's apartment. They went to the street An der Stammbahn and from there into the garden of number 53. At around 2:45 am they overcame the hinterland fence. In the border area they moved towards the border fence, but stopped because of an approaching watch dog . They were discovered by two border guards who first shot a signal ball and then called them to go to the Kolonnenweg with their hands up. In view of the hopeless situation, Walter Kittel and Eberhardt K. obeyed the request.
A dispute broke out between the border guards and those willing to flee, in the course of which a border guards fired three shots at Eberhardt K.'s feet. As a result, Kittel and K. sought protection in the vehicle barrier ditch, where they continued to be fired at. At this point in time Walter Kittel was uninjured, but Eberhardt K. was hit on the foot, upper arm and pelvis. When the commander of the group section came to the scene, he asked the fugitives to come out of the trench. Walter Kittel followed this and left his cover. The commander fired thirty shots at Kittel from a distance of 10 meters and shouted “ I swore no one would get out of here alive! “Walter Kittel hit the upper body several times, fell to the ground and died.
The shooter only stood before the Potsdam District Court in December 1992, which sentenced him to six years' imprisonment for manslaughter, applying the GDR criminal code. In the subsequent appeal proceedings before the Federal Court of Justice, the sentence was increased to ten years and the charge was changed from manslaughter to murder . The judges saw features of an execution as fulfilled. That was the highest punishment given in a wall shooter trial. According to German criminal law, a life sentence would have to be pronounced - the court, however, again applied GDR criminal law, which provided for a minimum sentence of ten years in prison for murder. There was no criminal assessment of the crime in the GDR.
literature
- 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 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Judgment of the Potsdam District Court of December 9, 1992, in: Ibid., P. 553
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kittel, Walter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German casualty from the Berlin Wall |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Koelleda |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 18, 1965 |
| Place of death | Berlin |