Marcel Krueger meets the man who turned a GDR watchtower into a memorial for his murdered brother…
„Gegen Verräter und Grenzverletzer ist die Schußwaffe anzuwenden. Es sind solche Maßnahmen zu treffen, daß Verbrecher in der 100-m-Sperrzone gestellt werden können. Beobachtungs- und Schußfeld ist in der Sperrzone zu schaffen.“
“Firearms are to be used against traitors and those attempting to violate the border. Measures should be taken with the aim of halting the criminal inside the 100-metre restricted area. Fields of observation and fire are to be created within the restricted area.”
— Erich Honecker, 1961
It’s 9.30 am on a Saturday and too early. Berlin rain has turned to sleet overnight, and walking past the Erika Hess ice rink on Chausseestrasse I wonder if the ungodly hour will have any influence on the interview I’m going to conduct.
At a bus-stop on Scharnhorststrasse I meet my friend Kai, who’s here to help out with a few pictures. We shake hands, agree that Kai’s hangover is worse than mine and walk around the corner.
There’s a small grey concrete tower standing at the end of the cul-de-sac of Kieler Strasse, encircled by apartment buildings on three sides and facing the slushy water of the Berlin-Spandau ship canal. A man with grey hair and wearing a blue outdoor jacket is waiting in front of the tower.
“Herr Litfin?”
Günther Litfin was not the first to lose his life trying to cross the Berlin wall. But he was the first who fell vicitim to the ‘Schiessbefehl’, the standing order that instructed border patrols of the GDR to prevent crossing by all means, including deadly force.
Swimming across the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal at the Humboldthafen on August 24, 1961, just 11 days after the border had been closed and the wall went up, he was shot by GDR border guards stationed on a nearby bridge. The image of his limp body being pulled from the Humboldthafen has become one of the iconic images of the Berlin Wall and its dead.
The day Günther was shot, two Stasi-men arrested his brother Jürgen. “They put me into a cell and left me there overnight without telling me anything. When I returned home the next day, it was a mess. The Stasi had searched our home looking for details about potential accomplices.” They did not, however, tell the fa…