Kurt Lichtenstein

He grew up in Berlin in the Prenzlauer Berg district, where he attended primary and higher secondary school.

He left high school to work as an errand boy at a clothing store, later training as a tool maker.

After the Saarland was annexed by Germany in 1935, he went to Paris where he was active in the communist movement, using the pseudonyms "Herbert", "Lauterbur", "Gaston Bergeaud" and "Jules Bardier".

At the end of 1936 Lichtenstein went to Spain as an International Brigade volunteer, serving the Republic in the Spanish Civil War.

In this capacity he acted as the editor of the German edition of the International Brigade newspaper, Volontaire de la Liberté.

Due to the Second World War, the French state interned Lichtenstein in southern France in 1939 as an enemy alien.

Also on Communist Party orders, Lichtenstein became a foreign worker in France, working using a false identity in a defense industry in Thuringia.

He wanted to travel the entire inner German border to report on the situation two months after the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Lichtenstein began his trip in Lübeck in a red car, and by 12 October 1961 was in Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony.

The Socialist Unity Party (SED) central newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany) carried the headline, "Provocateur violates the state border of the GDR."

Despite eyewitness accounts of the incident from both East and West Germans, rumors abounded that Lichtenstein had been killed for other reasons.

Alternate theories of Lichtenstein's death have focused on his earlier political work with and his departure from the German Communist Party.

The memorial consisted of a cross and an explanatory sign that read "Ein Deutscher, von Deutschen erschossen Kurt Lichtenstein † 12.10.1961" (A German, shot dead by Germans, Kurt Lichtenstein 12.10.1961) The memorial became a place of political demonstration.