18 August 1964 · Over the wall
Hildegard Trabant shot in the back on the disused S-Bahn line
Discovered hiding behind an elder bush on the disused railway, 37-year-old Hildegard Trabant ran away from the border and was shot in the back.
Hildegard Trabant, née Pohl, was born in Berlin on 12 June 1927. An SED member since 1949, she held a senior post in the municipal housing administration in Friedrichshain; her husband was a People's Police officer. Stasi files record that in February 1964 he had beaten her badly; her reasons for fleeing were probably family ones.
On 18 August 1964 at about 6.50 p.m. guards at the 'Holzbrücke' post on the disused S-Bahn line between Schönhauser Allee and Gesundbrunnen found a woman hiding behind an elder bush. When ordered out, she jumped up and ran, not towards the barriers but back towards the hinterland.
A guard fired a warning shot and then a single aimed shot into her back. She died an hour later in the People's Police hospital. The shooter was promoted and decorated.
Her husband was told she had been shot in an 'attempted border breach' and had to sign an undertaking to speak only of an accident. In West Berlin her death went unnoticed.
In 1998 the former guard, after finally confessing, was given a suspended sentence of one year and nine months; the court found that she had no longer been trying to flee when shot.
Sources
- Trabant, HildegardChronik der Mauer
- Die Todesopfer an der Berliner Mauer 1961-1989 (Hertle/Nooke, Stand August 2017)Stiftung Berliner Mauer
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