Lutz Haberlandt – shot at the Charité
On a warm Sunday a 24-year-old bricklayer climbed from the Charité hospital grounds into the border strip; a guard on the tower of the Supreme Court shot him in the head and he lay in the bushes for about 40 minutes.
Lutz Haberlandt, born in 1938, was a bricklayer who still lived with his parents in Prenzlauer Berg. His father had lost his job in West Berlin when the Wall was built, and the family had many relatives there. On Sunday 27 May 1962, after the family lunch, he left the flat without telling anyone of any plan to flee.
Probably not entirely sober, he went to the grounds of the Charité hospital, which bordered the sector boundary. At around 4 p.m. two transport policemen on a nearby railway bridge saw him climb onto the roof of a shed, take off his jacket and shoes and lie in the sun. Then he suddenly jumped down and climbed over the boundary wall into the closed border strip.
Guards on the tower of the Supreme Court building on Invalidenstraße, about 100 metres away, also saw him. After a warning shot, a guard fired two aimed shots and one hit Haberlandt in the head. Doctors, nurses and patients of the neighbouring psychiatric clinic saw him left lying in the bushes for about 40 minutes; by the time he was taken away he was probably already dead.
Other guards had also fired, and some bullets landed in West Berlin, where a police officer returned fire. In March 1996 the former guard who fired the fatal shot was given a suspended youth sentence of one year and six months for manslaughter.
Sources
- Haberlandt, LutzChronik der Mauer
- Dokumentation: Sie starben an der Berliner MauerDer Tagesspiegel
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