10 September 1961 · Guards who fled · Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag
Policeman Gerd Sommerlatte flees at the Brandenburg Gate and is kidnapped back
Posted to the Brandenburg Gate after the border closed, an 18-year-old policeman fled across the wire with his weapon rather than risk having to shoot at people. Less than three weeks later the Stasi had him abducted back to East Berlin.
Gerd Sommerlatte was born in 1943 in Dessau. After he refused to continue his farming apprenticeship in a collective farm (LPG), he was made to train with the People's Police in Halle. On 25 August 1961, shortly after the Wall was built, he was posted to border duty at the Brandenburg Gate.
He kept hearing of escape attempts that his comrades had stopped with their weapons, and realised he might have to shoot at friends or relatives himself. On 10 September 1961 he fled into West Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, where the border was then secured only with barbed wire, taking his weapon with him. After questioning by Western Allied and West German intelligence services he was registered at the Marienfelde reception camp.
At Marienfelde he befriended two refugees from the GDR. On the evening of 29 September 1961, out with his new friends, he suddenly found himself in the GDR: the two men had abducted him on behalf of the Ministry for State Security, which held him in its remand prison in the Magdalenenstraße.
Under pressure in the Stasi prisons in Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder) he made a false confession and in February 1962 was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. He served his sentence in the Stasi's secret labour camp 'Lager X' in Hohenschönhausen and from Easter 1965 in Brandenburg-Görden. On 21 October 1965 the Federal Republic bought his release.
Sources
- Zeitzeuge Gerd Sommerlatte: Mit der Waffe auf der FluchtZeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
- Zeitzeuge Gerd Sommerlatte: Wie geht es weiter?Zeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
- Zeitzeuge Gerd Sommerlatte: In die DDR entführtZeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
- Zeitzeuge Gerd Sommerlatte: Ein SchauprozessZeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
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