Marienetta Jirkowsky shot from a ladder at Hohen Neuendorf

Marienetta Jirkowsky was born on 25 August 1962. On 21 November 1980 the 18-year-old travelled to the Berlin area with her fiancé and a friend, identified in the sources as Peter W. and Falko V. The three had decided to flee together.

At about 3:30 a.m. on 22 November they took apart a stepladder and used it to climb the inner wall at Florastraße in Hohen Neuendorf, on the outer ring bordering the Frohnau area of Reinickendorf. The two men got over the signal fence without setting off the alarm, but it sounded when she followed.

Border soldiers fired from a watchtower about 160 metres away, and two more soldiers who had run from a tower 230 metres away also opened fire. Her hands were already on the top of the Wall when a bullet hit her and she fell from the ladder. Both men reached West Berlin.

She died at 11:30 that morning in the Hennigsdorf district hospital after emergency surgery for a gunshot wound through the abdomen.

Fifteen years later a Neuruppin court sentenced one of the gunmen, under juvenile law, to one year and three months on probation for a less serious case of manslaughter.