Johannes Lange shot at the last wall on Adalbertstraße

Johannes Lange, born in Dresden on 17 December 1940, trained as a decorative painter. He fled to West Germany in 1959 but returned two years later, and in 1962 was jailed for a year for having evaded registration for military service by leaving. In 1968, facing call-up to the National People's Army, he tried to flee via Czechoslovakia, was arrested and handed back, and received a suspended sentence and a travel ban.

On 9 April 1969 border soldiers watched him inspect the border area at Adalbertstraße / Fritz-Heckert-Straße near the Krankenhaus Berlin-Mitte and then withdraw. At about 10 p.m. he returned, climbed the rear fence and the anti-tank barriers unnoticed, and set off the alarm as he crossed the signal fence.

Guards on two towers opened fire, joined by the relief guard that had just arrived. Eight soldiers fired 148 rounds in all. Directly in front of the last obstacle, the 3.5-metre concrete wall, Lange was hit from behind by five bullets and died at once.

The guards dragged his body behind a tower out of view of West Berlin and turned away a paramedic from the nearby hospital. Bullets struck buildings on both sides, including the Bethanien hospital in Kreuzberg. The next day West Berliners put up a wooden cross and a wreath at the spot.

Nearly 30 years later one of the marksmen received a suspended youth sentence for attempted manslaughter; for the others it could not be proven that they had aimed at Lange.