A few meters separate the East Berlin from the free West, when the ball hits straight to the heart. The 20-Year-old had believed to the last, the order to shoot had been exposed to. A fatal error.
Who here has a gazebo, you may be lucky. In the summer it smells of roses and grilled meat. Typical Small Garden Idyll. The colony “harmony” is one of about 900 in Berlin. 30 years ago, but it has a serious flaw: only a stone’s throw away from the wall. Behind it is a narrow channel that connects the Britzer port in the West and the river Spree in the East with each other flows. In this region, two young men want to at the 5. February 1989, their dearest wish fulfil freedom.
Chris Gueffroy and his friend Christian hide in a tool shed and look over to your place: West Berlin. Shortly before midnight, you have to overcome undetected in the three-Meter-high wall on the Eastern side. The next obstacle, a metal fence, is the same. To him, the two are approaching at a crawl. All of a sudden it is loud and bright: sirens are wailing, lights flashing. Apparently, the refugees have touched a signal fence.
The shooting command is suspended until two months later
A Stele is remembered in Berlin to Chris Gueffroy
That your life is in danger, not believe you anyway. Because friends have told them, the shoot command was suspended because of the Swedish head of government on state, dwells a visit in the GDR. The escape should fail, would you deport you soon in the West. The two speculate and succumb to an for Chris Gueffroy fatal error. Because border guards opened fire, a bullet pierced the heart of the 20-year-old waiter. His death will trigger international protests. At the beginning of April 1989, seven months before the fall of the wall, no more orders of the GDR head of state Erich Honecker to shoot at refugees.
Chris Gueffroy is the last shot of the wall of the dead. A month later, on may 8. In March 1989, Winfried Freudenberg died. The 32-Year-old crashed with his self-built hot-air balloon at the city boundary of Berlin. Freudenberg forms chronologically the completion of a picture gallery at the Berlin wall memorial with the names, dates of birth and death of more than 130 Victims of the inner German border. The names of eight deaths of border soldiers are engraved in an adjacent Stele.
Victim-devotions in the chapel of reconciliation
30. Anniversary of the death of Chris Gueffroys is held to his memory in the chapel of reconciliation in a prayer service. The small house of God made of clay and wood is located on the former border strip and is a memorial to part of the wall. Since 2005, the year is almost over four times weekly devotions that focus on getting a concrete wall, fate. In the case of Gueffroys is not reminiscent of a young man who wants to go to the military and, therefore, no graduation. The dream is to be an actor or a Pilot. “As long as we read the biographies of the victims, the fates of the victims part of our present,” says memorial Director Axel Klausmeier of the German wave. “Their fates show how great the suffering, and how strong is your desire for freedom must have been.”
Chris Gueffroy (bottom right) in the “window of remembrance”; Winfried Freudenberg (above right) is the last wall-Dead
Klaus Meier, but also stresses the timeless significance of the commemoration. There was nothing that could be finished or completed. The historian sees in it an identity-forming process, “helps us to understand the present, by keeping the memory alive”. The works in the wall-memorial is particularly good at the “window of remembrance” with photographs of the victims. From surveys we know that most visitors would find this an emotional and individual access to the abstract theme of the division of Germany.
“Dictators can be peacefully overcome,”
And the interest is huge. Every year more and more people from all over the world is one of the few preserved wall, want to see the originals. Over a Million were there in 2018. Native visitors, says Klaus Meier, associations often personal memories or family stories with the intra-German border. Foreign tourists were, in contrast, often for a simple reason: to see the wall. In addition to North Americans and Western Europeans, many South Koreans find the way to the memorial Site in Bernauer Strasse.
Only a few hundred metres of the wall are preserved in the Central memorial in Berlin, there were 155 kilometers
“The visit is, of course, with a very direct and emotional references connected to their country,” says Klaus Meier. Berlin and his memorial is to be for people from the divided Asian country a place of hope. Because the history of the Overcoming of the wall also shows that “dictators can be peacefully overcome, if the political conditions allow it.”
“We Germans are the happiest people in the world”
How and why it worked in Germany – that, too, is in the memorial can relate to. “We Germans are now the happiest people in the world,” says the governing mayor of West Berlin, Walter Momper, at a rally the day after the fall of the wall-case. Chris Gueffroy these moments of happiness in November 1989 denied.
In the chapel of reconciliation on the former border strip and prayers for the victims of the wall are held regularly
His freedom urge is so strong that he risks his life and loses, because he believes this is a false rumor. “Can walls people kill” regrets that memorials Director Klaus Meier – and he thinks of walls in the 21st century.Century. But people had also not to stop. “We should make ourselves aware of when we are discussing about military borders.”