#GDR #OTD 1962 – 18 year old bricklayer Peter Fechter is shot and killed while trying to cross the Berlin Wall (1)
Fechter screamed in pain lying in the death strip in East Berlin, but no help was sent from either side. It took an hour for him to bleed out. (2)
Jumping a 2m high section of the Berlin Wall Peter Fechter was shot in the pelvis. His friend Helmut Kulbeik got away. (3)
GDR border guard Capt Rudi Arnstadt had been killed in exchange of fire with West Berlin Police during an escape three days earlier so East German guards feared going into death strip. (4)
Hundreds heard Peter Fechter’s screams on the West Berlin side, but they too feared crossing border to help and causing an international incident (5)
In 1997, two former border guards convicted of manslaughter, but court did not determine who fired fatal shot. (6)
Peter Fechter was one of 140 people known to have died due to the Berlin Wall historyned.blog/2015/08/24/of-…
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