Hans-Jürgen Starrost shot during capture at Sigridshorst

Hans-Jürgen Starrost, born in Berlin in 1955, was a trained construction worker. After frequent changes of job he was sentenced at the end of 1979 to eleven months' imprisonment for 'Arbeitsbummelei' (shirking work), which he served at Rüdersdorf until October 1980. On release he had to surrender his identity card and report regularly to the police. When he learned on 7 April 1981 that he was wanted again for breaching these conditions, he went into hiding.

On 13 April he travelled to Teltow hoping to stay with a friend from his army days. Not finding him, he decided in a local bar to attempt an escape across the nearby border that same night. On the way he took a metal ladder in the Sigridshorst settlement.

At about 1.10 a.m. on 14 April the noise of his attempt to climb the rear fence alerted two guards, who found the ladder and raised the alarm. Guards, their superiors and a local Volkspolizei officer (ABV) searched the area. The ABV found him hiding on a nearby property; Starrost tried to run, was dazzled by a searchlight and was seized by a soldier. The ABV then shot him in the abdomen from immediate proximity. He later said the shot went off in a scuffle, but a Stasi examination found that the pistol could not fire unintentionally when used correctly.

Despite his serious injury he was first questioned by a Stasi officer before being taken to the army hospital in Potsdam for emergency surgery. Kidney failure followed; only after a week was he moved to an intensive-care unit, where he died on 16 May 1981. An investigation of the ABV opened after 1990 was discontinued in 1995.