Eduard Wroblewski – 274 shots at Mahlow
Family man Eduard Wroblewski was hit twelve times from behind in the barbed wire beside the old Mahlow–Lichtenrade railway, in one of the heaviest shootings at the Wall.
Eduard Wroblewski was born in 1933 and lived in Zahna near Wittenberg with his wife and two children. He had briefly lived in West Germany in 1952 before returning. By July 1966 conflicts with superiors and authorities were weighing on him and he faced another dismissal.
On the morning of 26 July 1966 he left home as if going to work but travelled to Mahlow, south of Berlin. In the early evening he entered the border area along the disused S-Bahn tracks that once ran to Lichtenrade and got within 100 metres of the last three-row barbed-wire fence without being seen.
When the first shots fell without warning, he ran and got through two rows of wire before he collapsed, hit from behind. Five or six young conscripts fired 274 rounds; twelve struck him and he died on the spot.
Residents of Lichtenrade, some watching the England–Portugal World Cup semi-final, witnessed the shooting; bullets hit houses, roofs and living-room walls on the western side. The Senate put up a sign reading 'Soldat, das war Mord!'.
The East Berlin press smeared him as an 'asocial' former legionnaire. In 1996 the Potsdam regional court gave two former guards suspended 18-month sentences for manslaughter.
Sources
- Wroblewski, EduardChronik der Mauer
- Dokumentation: Sie starben an der Berliner MauerDer Tagesspiegel
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