GERMANY: Document fuels debate on East German border deaths under communism

A recently unearthed document provides new evidence of written orders to East German soldiers to shoot would-be escapees to the West, fuelling debate about who's to blame for hundreds of deaths at the former border. A document unearthed in a Magdeburg archive has provided new evidence of written orders to East German soldiers to shoot would-be escapees and fuels a fresh debate about who was responsible for the hundreds of deaths along the border between the divided Germany. Marianne Birthler, the head of the authority that looks after the archive of the Stasi, the East German secret police, where the document was found, said it was significant because some of East Germany's former political leaders still dispute whether they should be held to account for orders to shoot people trying to flee to West Germany. The document details an order for Stasi operatives infiltrated into border guard units to help prevent soldiers escaping to the West. Written in October 1973, it instructs them to use their weapons, even against women and children. "This document for the first time shows that weapons were supposed to be used without constraint," Joerg Stoye, head of the Stasi archive's Magdeburg branch told Reuters Television. "Other military units at least had some limitations when it came to using weapons. Such is not the case here," Stoye said. The document's discovery comes as Germany marks the 46th anniversary on Monday (August 13) of the construction of the Berlin Wall, which divided the city for 27 years from 1961 until 1989. Previous trials of former border guards who fired at would-be escapees and the officials who ordered the shoot-to-kill policy have generated huge controversy since German unification in 1990. Many of the accused argued that their actions, at the time they were committed, did not constitute offences under East German law and accused the western-dominated courts of practising "victors' justice". The total number of people killed while trying to cross the border is uncertain. Berlin prosecutors count 270 deaths through shooting or mines along the whole of the border between East and West Germany, including the Berlin Wall, up to 1989. A separate government study from 2000, estimated the number killed at 421 while other estimates run as high as 1,000 deaths. Most of those who died trying to escape were ordinary citizens but some border guards were shot by their comrades.

ITN Source | August 14, 2007

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