Читать книгу Where in the World is the Berlin Wall? - Группа авторов - Страница 17

A great danger to people trying to escape were the difficult-to-cross barriers and the support of the border guards by the People’s Police, the State Security, their unofficial staff, and border police volunteers. The deadly threat at the border, however, was the shooting of fugitives and so-called border violators. Even though members of the GDR’s political and military leadership still denied at the trials in the 1990s that there had ever been a shoot-to-kill order, killing at the Wall was common practice.⁴⁰

From a formal legal point of view, the laws, service regulations and orders on the use of firearms only contained a “permissive” element, not an obligation to kill. Nevertheless, the explicit instructions given to border troops during their daily check-in – to prevent any escape attempt and “destroy border violators” led to the deaths of 140 people at the Berlin Wall alone, most of them through the use of firearms. Among the fatalities were 101 refugees, 30 people from East and West, and one Soviet soldier with no intention of escaping who was either shot or died in an accident. In addition, there were eight border guards killed on duty. Most of the victims were young men between the ages of 17 and 29. In addition, at least 251 mostly elderly people died in visitor and travel traffic at the border crossing points between East and West Berlin.⁴¹

The last person shot trying to escape over the Wall was 21-year-old Chris Gueffroy who was shot on 5^th February 1989 whilst trying to escape along the Britz district canal.⁴² He had heard from a friend that the order to shoot at the Wall had been lifted and wanted to escape military service with the NVA (National People’s Army) by fleeing. Whilst the four soldiers who broke off the escape attempt were given a cash reward of 150 Marks and military awards for their actions by the border police, Gueffroy’s friend, who also tried to escape and suffered substantial injuries, was sentenced to three years imprisonment. Significant international pressure led Honecker to lift the order to kill on 3^rd April 1989.⁴³ For Chris Gueffroy, this order came too late.