Hans Räwel – New Year's morning in the icy Spree

Hans Räwel was born on 11 December 1941 in Stralsund, grew up on Rügen and moved to East Berlin with his family in 1957, where his parents ran a bakery in Rahnsdorf. He had completed a baker's apprenticeship and was training as a confectioner.

He spent New Year's Eve 1962 with a girlfriend at the Plänterwald venue in Treptow; they parted around 4 a.m.

In air temperatures below minus 10 °C he entered the Spree near the Oberbaumbrücke. Around 6.15 a.m. a GDR border patrol boat spotted him. He swam through the wooden pilings in the middle of the river, forcing the boat to go round the row, but the boat caught up and the crew fired at close range. One of the shooters reported that he was about 35 metres from the western bank. A GDR border troops report on the recovery of his body is dated 2 January 1963.

GDR authorities told his mother he had been found drowned and left the family uncertain about how he died. Three former crew members were charged in April 1994, and in March 1996 the Berlin Regional Court convicted the two who had fired of manslaughter; his mother and sister attended the trial.