Posted on 09/29/2007 5:28:50 AM PDT by Argentine-Firecracker
East Germany's ex-leaders always denied they had ordered soldiers to shoot people trying to flee across the Berlin Wall, even though hundreds were killed. Now the discovery of a written order to open fire on men, women and children has reawakened fading memories of the regime's brutality.
It was always obvious that East Germany's border guards were ordered to shoot at people trying to flee to the West. Had no such order existed, they wouldn't have killed an estimated 1,100 defectors making desperate bids for freedom across the Berlin Wall or the minefields of the 860-mile border between East and West Germany. Most of those victims were shot -- 18-year-old Peter Fechter, for example, who bled to death at the foot of the Wall in August 1962 after guards fired into his back as he tried to escape.
But after the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, East Germany's former leaders and top Stasi secret service officials insisted there had been no shoot-to-kill order, and the absence of evidence to the contrary helped many of them to escape prosecution or get away with only lenient sentences in a series of trials.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
You’d think that the surviving guards would know if there was a shoot to kill order. If they did not, then what use would it be?
The Russians made them do it.
They were only following non-existent orders.
Pretend for a moment that you're a surviving guard and know all about the order. Perhaps you were forced by the presence of the Stasi to shoot at an escapee or had a friend who did.
Are you going to go public and subject yourself and others you worked with to charges of crimes against humanity? Not to mention the personal reactions of currently PC friends and neighbors.
Someone who was 20 when the wall went up is 59 now. My guess is that as these men approach death from old age, some will be stung by their own consciences into confessing. If there were an amnesty for those who do so now, the process will be sped up--especially if they can say the Stasi would have shot them if they didn't do it.
I have a piece of that wall in my china closet.
You don’t have to admit you shot anyone. Just say what the orders were.
For your list.
I was stationed in Berlin from 84-88, my son was born there in the US hospital. My wife and I must have drove through Checkpoint Charlie over 100 times. I remember the faces of the East German border guards, there was no doubt in my mind that they would shoot first, no questions asked. Most escape attempts never made the international news but were picked up on Armed Forces Televison in Berlin. Escape attempts were more numerous than many thought. Many of the news items on the escape attempts would be West Berliners awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of automatic weapons fire, East Germany border guards would then be observed dragging something away.
***It was always obvious that East Germany’s border guards were ordered to shoot at people trying to flee to the West.***
Impossible. I heard Vladimer Posner of Radio Moscow said the wall was designed to keep westerners from fleeing to the people’s paridise of East Germany.
Sarc/ off.
paridise == Paradise..
A pal of mine was stationed in West Berlin, working as a “listener” to East German radio frequencies for the US Army. He said there was no doubt in his mind the E. Germans would shoot, given any opportunity.
“Most escape attempts never made the international news...”
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In the early 60s, some of these shootings were seen on US TV and in newsreels. Then, for some reason, they dissappeared.
My point was that saying what the orders were would have opened up investigations--investigations that might expose who did and didn't shoot. It's moot really as the investigations are going to come now anyway.
Good point--better than mine IMO. I suspect the Stasi vanished into thin air about as much as the KGB did in Russia. IOW not at all.
Didn't the wall go up in 1960?
http://66.235.201.12/videoclips/jfkberlin.wmv
LET THEM COME TO BERLIN!
I think it was '61.
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