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Chris Gueffroy is often referred to as the last victim of the Berlin Wall, but he was actually the last person shot to death while crossing. Why does this distinction matter...dw.com/en/remembering…
The number of victims of the Berlin Wall varies between 80 and 140 depending on how you understand what the Wall was and how it led to death. At the low end of the count is the definition based on those deliberately killed while trying to cross the border
An alternative reading of the Berlin Wall is to count all of those who died due to the existence of the Wall as a militarized border: this includes those killed who were not trying to cross the border, those who died as the result of accidents caused by the Wall's existence
This is the methodology used by the Berlin Wall Memorial: by this count 101 were killed while trying to migrate across the border, 30 people died on both sides of the border due to accidents and, controversially, 8 East German border guards.
By only including those deliberately shot to death, this would exclude Winfried Freudenberg who died trying to balloon over the border a month after Chris Gueffory. And it would also exclude the West German children who drowned in the militarized border zone.
But including all those who died due to the existence of the Berlin Wall, then the border guards who were killed on the job - by escapees, accidentally by colleagues, by West Berlin police gunfire - are included alongside those deliberately murdered for trying to migrate.
These definitions also have political implications for the present: historyned.blog/2015/08/24/of-… 
