Former border guard

You were born in August 1961 in Magdeburg. After the usual compulsory service in the National People's Army, you were assigned to work with the East German border guards who secured the German-German border and the Berlin Wall. You are married and have two children. During your work as a border guard, you more than once contemplated joining the over 2000 border guards who crossed over to West Germany. You didn't flee because that would have put your wife and kids in prison.

On the night of December 3, 1988, you were manning a guard tower along the Elbe River, which formed a portion of the East-West border. Shortly after midnight, you were alerted by the other guard on watch that there had been some movement near one of the fences on the Eastern side. You searched the fence lines through binoculars and saw a figure trying to dig his way under a section of the fence. Following procedure, you called out over the loudspeakers for the man to stop and put his hands over his head. However, he ignored you and so you fired the required warning shot into the air. The man ignored you again. You hesitated a moment because, according to regulations, your next shot had to be aimed to kill. The other guard on duty reminded you of this, and so you reluctantly took aim and shot the man as he was trying to squeeze his way to the West German side. (See: East German Police).

You felt tremendous remorse at having shot this man, but this feeling was difficult to indulge after you were commended for protecting the borders and the welfare of the GDR and were reassigned to a more favorable post. You thought you would be able to get on with your life and forget about the whole incident. Before a year had passed, though, the political regime of the GDR was crumbling and by 1990 unification seemed inevitable.

You are a product of the East German system of day care, school, and youth group (Freie Deutsche Jugend or FDJ). You are aware of the deficiencies of the East German form of socialism, but at the same time you believe that it provided you with a more egalitarian form of life than in the West. In particular, life wasn't eaten up by work and you had enough time to spend with your family and friends. After the fall of the wall you visited West Berlin and all the consumer goods on display there both baffled and impressed you. But you also noticed that in the West there is a significant difference in the degree of warmth in everyday interactions between people, and you find the constant presence of advertisements annoying.

You don't know what the future will bring, and you are aware that your killing of a refugee may result in complications. For the time being, you hope to find an honest job and help your wife feed your family. Sometimes you still have nightmares about the moment when you pulled the trigger and the feeling of being helpless in a situation where you could only lose.

*Additional off-site links -

Border Guards

• Border Guard Cases
• Order 101: Shooting to kill at the Berlin Wall

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