Czeslaw Kukuczka was shot within the again as he tried to flee from East Germany by way of the Berlin Wall on March 29, 1974.
A former East German secret police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for capturing lifeless a Polish man making an attempt to cross the Berlin Wall into West Germany 50 years in the past.
Berlin state courtroom on Monday discovered ex-Stasi officer Martin Naumann, 80, responsible of homicide for killing Czeslaw Kukuczka at shut vary as he tried to flee via Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse border level on March 29, 1974.
Choose Bernd Miczajka stated in his sentencing remarks, “It was not the act of a person for private causes, however deliberate and mercilessly executed by the Stasi.”
Miczajka added that the defendant fired the shot “on the finish of a sequence of command”.
Forward of the decision, Daniela Munkel, the pinnacle of the Stasi archives in Berlin, stated the conviction would have “nice symbolic significance” within the nation’s efforts to atone for the Nazi regime.
Nevertheless, the courtroom didn’t settle for the Berlin public prosecutor’s request to condemn Naumann to 12 years in jail.
The German information outlet DPA reported that Naumann’s lawyer, Andrea Liebscher, had demanded an acquittal after arguing that it had not been confirmed that her shopper fired the deadly shot.
German secret police
In accordance with latest historic analysis, on the day the deadly capturing occurred, Kukuczka had gone to the Polish embassy in East Berlin and threatened to detonate a pretend bomb until he was granted passage to West Berlin.
Embassy officers accepted his request while alerting East German authorities to the menace.
As soon as Stasi officers handed Kukuczka his exit visa, he was led to the “Palace of Tears” crossing, the place he was shot within the again from shut vary.
As an alternative of being taken to a close-by hospital following the shot, Kukuczka was transported to a Stasi jail additional away and bled to demise.
In accordance with archival paperwork, the key police have been beneath orders to “render innocent” Kukuczka, a standard time period within the Stasi doc for the liquidation of political opponents.
Preliminary investigations into his demise within the Nineties didn’t result in a conclusion, however the case was later picked up after Poland issued a European arrest warrant for Naumann in 2021.
He was then charged with homicide in October of final yr.
In accordance with official authorities data, 251 folks have been charged with crimes dedicated on behalf of the Stasi through the Nineties.
Nevertheless, two-thirds of the legal proceedings ended with an acquittal or with out a verdict.
