Refugee Shootings Along The Berlin Wall and The Inner-German Border
Undoubtedly the most controversial aspect surrounding the Grenztruppen der DDR concerns those who were killed or wounded while attempting to flee East Germany into the West. Even today, the topic of the "shoot-to-kill order" (Schießbefehl) is quite sensitive in Germany, East and West. According to information released by the "Working Group 13th of August" (Arbeitsgemeinschaft 13. August e.V.) on 13 August 2004, 1065 persons were killed along the GDR's frontiers and coastline, including 37 Grenztruppen soldiers killed during escape attempts. Many more were wounded.
The Berlin Public Prosecution Department estimates that about 270 'proven' deaths on the border were due to acts of violence by GDR border security guards, including deaths caused by mines and automatic firing devices. However, the Central Assessment Group for Governmental and Organized Crimes (German: ZERV), which existed from 1991 to 2000 as a branch of the Berlin Police, registered 421 suspected cases of killings by armed GDR border guards.
To encourage the troops, the GDR government gave distinctions, extra liberty and premiums to a soldier who had used his gun in earnest at the border. If he had killed a refugee, he got a gold watch, but was also transferred to another unit to avoid bullying from his own unit buddies.
Read more about this topic: Border Troops Of The German Democratic Republic
Famous quotes containing the words refugee, berlin, wall and/or border:
“The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.”
—John Frederick Nims (b. 1913)
“From the mountains to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home!”
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989)
“... the Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sort of border life, on the confines of a world into which I make occasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism and allegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreat are those of a moss-trooper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)