Prosecutors say a former member of communist East Germany’s secret police has been charged with homicide over the killing of a Polish nationwide at a border crossing in divided Berlin in 1974
ByThe Related Press
October 12, 2023, 5:20 AM
FILE – Folks queue on the Friedrichstrasss border checkpoint on March 31, 1972 to permit East and West Berlin residents to reunite. Prosecutors say a former member of communist East Germany’s secret police has been charged with homicide over the killing of a Polish nationwide at a border crossing in divided Berlin in 1974. (AP Picture/Dieter Endlicher, File)
The Related Press
BERLIN — A former member of communist East Germany’s secret police has been charged with homicide over the killing of a Polish nationwide at a border crossing in divided Berlin in 1974, prosecutors mentioned Thursday.
The indictment in opposition to the 79-year-old man, whose title wasn’t launched, was filed on the state court docket within the German capital.
It pertains to an incident on March 29, 1974, through which a 38-year-old Polish man took a pretend bomb to the Polish Embassy to attempt to drive an unhindered exit to West Berlin, prosecutors mentioned in a press release.
East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, allegedly determined to feign authorizing the person’s exit. Its staff supplied him with exit paperwork and accompanied him to a border crossing on the Friedrichstrasse railway station in East Berlin, prosecutors mentioned.
They mentioned that the suspect, age 31 on the time, was tasked with rendering the Polish man “innocent.” After the Pole had handed the ultimate checkpoint, the suspect allegedly shot him within the again from a hiding place.
East Germany constructed the Berlin Wall in 1961, stopping most of its residents from touring to the West. Many tried to flee by tunneling below it, swimming previous it, climbing or flying over it. At the very least 140 folks died within the try.
The closely fortified border was opened on Nov. 9, 1989, a key second within the collapse of communism in Europe. Germany was reunited lower than a 12 months later.
