Walter Heike shot at the Invalidenfriedhof
Former customs officer Walter Heike climbed the cemetery wall and was pulling himself up the last wall before the canal when a border NCO shot him.
Walter Heike, born in 1934 in Tauroggen, Lithuania, came as a child refugee to Brandenburg in 1945. He trained as a painter, served five years in the Barracked People's Police and NVA and then joined the East Berlin customs service, from which he was dismissed in February 1964, reportedly because he had met a woman from West Berlin while on duty at Friedrichstraße.
There are clear signs he planned his escape: he carried personal papers and cash, and a notebook listing the books he would have to leave behind. He chose a building site on the Scharnhorststraße near the Sandkrugbrücke to approach the border.
On the morning of 22 June 1964 a member of the Stasi guard regiment at the nearby government hospital saw him, called on him to stop and fired two warning shots. Heike climbed over the wall of the Invalidenfriedhof and ran towards the canal bank.
At about 5.30 a.m. four border soldiers spotted him. An NCO knelt and fired from 25–30 metres as Heike tried to pull himself up the last wall before the canal embankment. Hit in the abdomen, he probably died on the spot.
West Berlin police across the canal heard the shots and saw a lifeless figure carried away. His family was told only that he had been fatally injured in Berlin 'through his own fault'.
Sources
- Heike, WalterChronik der Mauer
- Dokumentation: Sie starben an der Berliner MauerDer Tagesspiegel
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