Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

26 November 1965 – 3 December 1965 · Over the wall · Treptow and Neukölln

Erich Kühn shot 'blindly into the bushes' at Kiefholzstraße

Sixty-two-year-old Erich Kühn was wounded when a guard, ordered to act, fired blindly at a noise on the railway embankment at Kiefholzstraße; he died eight days later.

Two tall glass panels in grey frames printed with text and a column of names and small portraits, beside a street, with a wreath and greenery laid at their foot.
Glass memorial panels at Kiefholzstraße 79, Berlin-Plänterwald, naming Heinz Jercha, Walter Hayn, Erich Kühn, Gerald Thiem, René Gross and Manfred Mäder, who died along this stretch of the border (2011) Photo: OTFW, Berlin. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Erich Kühn, born on 27 February 1903 in Landsberg an der Warthe, had lived most of his life in Berlin. According to the surviving records his life was marked by poverty, many convictions and personal conflicts. In autumn 1965 he was ill and without means; after weeks in hospital, including a psychiatric clinic, he did not return from home leave in mid-November.

After dark on 26 November 1965 he approached the barriers below the embankment of the disused railway that crossed the Kiefholzstraße between Treptower Park and Sonnenallee stations. Two guards posted on the bridge heard a noise from the embankment but could not see whether it was a refugee.

Hesitant to act, the post commander telephoned the platoon leader, who ordered him to act. He then told his sentry to shoot, and the sentry fired his Kalashnikov 'blindly into the bushes', as the press reported decades later.

Kühn was hit in the abdomen and taken to the People's Police hospital. He developed peritonitis and died on the evening of 3 December 1965. No relatives came forward, and he was buried in an anonymous grave at the Baumschulenweg cemetery.

In 1995 the three former guards were given one-year suspended sentences for manslaughter or incitement to manslaughter.

Sources

  1. Kühn, ErichChronik der Mauer
  2. Dokumentation: Sie starben an der Berliner MauerDer Tagesspiegel

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