List of deaths at the Berlin Wall

In numerous legal cases throughout the 1990s, several border guards, along with political officials responsible for the defence policies, were found guilty of manslaughter and served probation or were jailed for their role in the Berlin Wall deaths.

[citation needed] After the fall of the Wall, criminal investigations into border killings were launched by the Zentrale Ermittlungsstelle für Regierungs- und Vereinigungskriminalität [de] (ZERV) and the Berlin public prosecutor's office.

[7] The Salzgitter registry recorded incidents in which "suspicion of a criminal act was justified", while the Arbeitsgruppe 13 August, which also manages the house at Checkpoint Charlie and is run by the artist Alexandra Hildebrandt, widow of the founder Rainer Hildebrandt, counted "all victims who died in connection with flight and/or the border regime", including deaths by accidents or drowning, or deaths of border soldiers and policemen in suicides or firearms accidents.

The Checkpoint Charlie Museum gives the number at 245 deaths, though this includes suicides by border guards and bodies found in the water even when there was no obvious link to them being an escapee.

After reviewing 575 deaths, the project team found that at least 140 people died in shootings, were killed in accidents or committed suicide after failing to cross the Wall.

Analyzing the daily records of border guards and examining activities in areas that had been under surveillance might have presented an alternative, but could not be realized due to financial issues.

Many other travellers from East and West Germany and Czechoslovakia died immediately before, during or after passing through checkpoints in Berlin, with a published figure of 251 deaths‍—‍most were the result of cardiac arrest.

After the ZZF published its interim results in August 2006, Alexandra Hildebrandt of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft has accused them of withholding numbers to invoke a more positive picture of East Germany.

The street itself belonged to the French sector of West Berlin and the East German authorities declared that the windows and doors that led out onto Bernauer Straße should be bricked up.

After the reactions to the public death of Peter Fechter, border guards were ordered to move any casualties out of West Berlin's field of view.

101 of the fatalities were attempted border-crossers, of which all but three were East Germans (the exceptions were Franciszek Piesik and Czesław Kukuczka, Polish citizens, and Vladimir Ivanovich Odinzov, a Soviet soldier).

The signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975 led to new opportunities to cross the border legally, resulting in a rise in emigration applications and a corresponding fall in escape attempts.

First aid was not provided; Ehrlich died at the People's Police Hospital from exsanguination; Flight intent unclear There has been commemoration of the victims both before and after the German reunification.

[citation needed] The northern wall bears the inscription:"In memory of the city's division from 13 August 1961 to 9 November 1989 and in commemoration of the victims of the communist reign of violence".

[168] An annual com­mem­ora­tion service of the fall of the Berlin Wall takes place on 9 November each year at Eureka College in Illinois, United States, the alma mater of President Ronald Reagan.

The West German, US, British and French authorities protested killings when they occurred and the international reputation of East Germany was damaged as a result.

In the case of the November 1986 shooting of Michael Bittner at the Wall, a Stasi report commented: "The political sensitivity of the state border to Berlin (West) made it necessary to conceal the incident.

[citation needed] In cases of death, the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin and Mayor issued statements of indignation concerning the deceased, the Wall and the situation in the GDR.

After Rudolf Müller had shot the border guard Reinhold Huhn and fled west through a self-made tunnel, Egon Bahr, speaker of the Senate at that time, announced he had only thrown him an "uppercut".

The fact that Peter Fechter bled to death in plain view of the public without anybody being able to help him led to spontaneous mass demonstrations, which in turn resulted in riots in the following night.

[180] In the ensuing time, loudspeaker cars were sporadically set up at the Berlin Wall, urging the GDR border guards not to shoot at refugees and warning them of possible consequences.

This resulted in at least one lethal incident on 23 May 1962, when the border guard Peter Göring was shot dead by a West Berlin policeman while firing 44 times at a fleeing boy.

[181] In 1991 Berlin's public prosecution department rendered this incident assistance in emergency and self-defence in consequence of the police officer stating that he felt his life being threatened.

In the case of Peter Fechter, local US soldiers stated that they were not allowed to cross the border and enter East Berlin, although this was permitted to Allied military personnel when uniforms are worn.

"[185] President Kennedy was concerned over this issue and dispatched Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy to the Town Major to call for preventative measures against such incidents.

[186] Ten days after Fechter's death, Konrad Adenauer contacted the French President Charles de Gaulle, to send a letter to Nikita Khrushchev through him.

[184] Under the involvement of Willy Brandt, the four City Commanders reached an agreement concerning military ambulances from the Western Allies, which were now allowed to pick up injured persons from the border zone, to bring them to hospitals in East Berlin.

[citation needed] Members of the National Defence Council, the political group responsible for the policies regarding the Berlin Wall, and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) were brought to court in the 1990s.

In 1997 Egon Krenz, who had in 1989 become the last Communist leader of East Germany, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for the manslaughter of four Germans who were shot while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.

Other men to be given jail sentences include the Defence Minister at the time, Heinz Kessler, his deputy Fritz Streletz, Günter Schabowski and Günther Kleiber.