1 December 1984 · Over the wall
Michael Schmidt shot at Schulzestraße
A 20-year-old carpenter used ladders from his worksite to climb into the border strip at Schulzestraße; shot in the back and knee, he waited almost an hour for an ambulance and died in hospital.
Michael Schmidt was born on 20 October 1964 and worked as a carpenter in a brigade renovating houses on Schulzestraße in Pankow, where a courtyard backed onto the border wall. His wish to leave grew after a military medical examination at which he flatly refused to be assigned to border service.
In the early hours of 1 December 1984 he carried two wooden ladders to the building where he worked. He climbed over the wall into a rear courtyard and then over the first border barrier. When he climbed the signal fence he set off optical and acoustic alarms.
Two guards in a tower about 100 metres away opened fire, one from the tower and the other from the ground after climbing down. He was hit in the back and the knee and fell.
Almost an hour passed before an ambulance took him, at 4:25 a.m., to the People's Police Hospital in Berlin-Mitte, where he died at 6:20 a.m. A 1991 medical assessment concluded that with prompt treatment his life could have been saved 'with a probability bordering on certainty'. His parents were given the runaround for days.
On 5 February 1992 the two guards were convicted of joint manslaughter and given suspended sentences of 18 and 21 months.
Sources
- Schmidt, MichaelChronik der Mauer
- Die Todesopfer an der Berliner Mauer 1961-1989 (Hertle/Nooke, 2017)Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam / Stiftung Berliner Mauer
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