Roland Hoff – shot in the Teltow Canal
Five days after Günter Litfin's death, 27-year-old Roland Hoff jumped into the Teltow Canal with a briefcase under his arm and was killed by border police gunfire.
Roland Hoff was born in Hanover on 19 March 1934 and trained as a pipe layer; his mother and three sisters lived in Hanover. At the time of his escape he was living in the GDR.
Around 2 p.m. on 29 August 1961 he jumped into the Teltow Canal on the border between Teltow and West Berlin's Lichterfelde, carrying a briefcase, and swam towards the western bank.
When the first shots were fired he called out not to shoot. Four border policemen kept firing until he was hit in the head and sank.
The GDR kept his identity secret. His mother suspected from Western press reports that the dead man in the canal was her son, but never received confirmation from East German authorities in her lifetime; he was only identified from East German records after the archives opened. A trial of three former border police officers after 1990 could not establish who had fired the fatal shot.
Sources
- Hoff, RolandChronik der Mauer
- 138 Menschen starben an der Mauer: Todesschüsse im KanalDer Tagesspiegel
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