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Topic: GDR border guards

	German Democratic Republic border system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		From 1961 the GDR border was strengthened further to prevent mass migration to the west, and the westward movement slowed to a trickle.
		The most famous part of the GDR border was the Berlin Wall, built on 13 August 1961, cutting off the three Western sectors of Berlin from East Berlin and the GDR.
		The inner German border was opened on 9 November 1989 under the GDR Chairman of the State Council Egon Krenz.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/GDR_border_system (1650 words)

	Untitled Document
		GDR border guards were members of the National People's Army and were directly answerable to the Ministry of Defence.
		Admittedly, misgivings as to whether the breach of criminal law was clear beyond all doubt might arise from the fact that the GDR leadership, exercising the authority of the State, broadened the justification intended to cover the conduct of the border guards and thereby made that justification available to them.
		On account of its restrictive policy on the freedom of movement, the GDR was repeatedly criticized under the Resolution 1503 procedure for failure to comply with the general obligation to respect human rights enshrined in Articles 1 § 3, 55 and 56 of the United Nations Charter.
	home.att.net /~slomansonb/BerlinWall.html (7372 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Border guards had been ordered to protect the border of the GDR at all costs, even if that meant that “border violators” (Grenzverletzer) thereby lost their lives.
		What was important for the border guards was not written law but what had been inculcated in them during their training, through political instruction and during their everyday service.
		Moreover, in the majority of States access to the border was forbidden or strictly regulated, and the use of firearms by border guards authorised if the persons hailed by them did not heed their warnings.
	staging.njb.nl /NJB/mem/links/streletz.html (12032 words)

	The German Border Guard Cases and International Human Rights
		According to the Unification Treaty, the law relevant to crimes committed on GDR territory prior to the date of unification was the criminal law of the GDR, unless the law of the Federal Republic of Germany was more favourable to the defendant.
		Thus, defendants invoked GDR law to establish that their actions had been lawful and could not be held to be criminal.
		In criminal matters the Unification Treaty provided that the law applicable to acts committed in GDR territory prior to the date of unification continued to be the criminal law of the GDR, unless in individual cases the criminal law of the Federal Republic was more favourable to the defendant.
	www.ejil.org /journal/Vol9/No3/art6.html (648 words)

	University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
		While the Court recognized that it was not the author's direct intention to cause the death of border violators, it argued that he was fully aware, and accepted, that, as a direct consequence of the application of these orders, persons attempting to cross the border could lose their lives.
		Under the GDR's criminal law, intent to kill could not be presumed on the basis of one's knowledge of the possible lethal consequences of the use of firearms.
		However, since he was not identical with the GDR as a subject of international law, the Covenant could not create rights or duties for him, let alone establish his criminal liability, in the absence of an incorporation of that instrument into the GDR's domestic law.
	www1.umn.edu /humanrts/undocs/960-2000.htm (6082 words)

	Amnesty International Nederland - thema berechting case 1
		The GDR border system was formed by a series of chain-link fences, walls, turrets and mine fields that was in place from 1952 to 1990, and was 1,381 km in length.
		Between 1949 and 1961 approximately 2.5 million people crossed from the GDR to the FRG via the still open border with West Berlin with a further 5,000 crossing the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989 The border was actively guarded using a variety of often lethal methods.
		GDR officials are angered by prosecutions for actions that were legal in the GDR and upset that many low ranking GDR officials, despite the government’s intentions, have been fired or had their pensions reduced.
	www.amnesty.nl /bibliotheek_vervolg/thema_berechting_case_1 (6588 words)

	STRELETZ, KESSLER AND KRENZ v. GERMANY - 34044/96;35532/97;44801/98 [2001] ECHR 230 (22 March 2001)
		On account of its restrictive policy on the freedom of movement, the GDR was repeatedly criticised under the Resolution 1503 procedure for failure to comply with the general obligation to respect human rights enshrined in Articles 1 § 3, 55 and 56 of the United Nations Charter.
		Their attempts to cross the border, although prohibited by GDR law, could not therefore be classified as serious crimes since none of the cases fell into the category of serious offences as defined in Article 213 § 3 of the GDR’s Criminal Code.
		Secondly, the way in which the GDR put into practice the prohibition barring its nationals from leaving the country and punished contravention of that policy was contrary to another right secured under the Covenant, namely the right to life guaranteed by Article 6, for those who were its victims.
	www.worldlii.org /eu/cases/ECHR/2001/230.html (14282 words)

	State Reports - CCPR - Germany - CCPR/C/84/Add.5 (1995)
		The court had found them guilty of having, as GDR border guards, shot a person, on 1 December 1984, who was trying to escape from East to West across the Wall between the Pankow district in East Berlin and the Wedding district in West Berlin.
		The Federal Court of Justice argued that the GDR border regime had violated article 12 of the Covenant because those living in the GDR were denied the human right to freely leave the country, not only in exceptional cases but as a general rule.
		It ruled that this was irrelevant; the GDR border regime had been particularly harsh in view of the fact that "Germans in the GDR had a particular motive for wishing to cross the border to West Berlin and West Ger-many.
	www.bayefsky.com /reports/germany_ccpr_c_84_add.5_1995.php (19805 words)

	K.-H. W. v. GERMANY - 37201/97 [2001] ECHR 229 (22 March 2001)
		His attempt to cross the border, although prohibited by GDR law, could not therefore be classified as a serious crime since it did not fall into the category of serious offences as defined in Article 213 § 3 of the GDR’s Criminal Code.
		Therefore, I believe that, by associating himself as a border guard with the execution of the relevant murderous plan against civilians who attempted to escape from the GDR and by intentionally killing a fugitive, the applicant in this case became responsible for the commission of a crime against humanity.
		The border regime that was “imposed” (see paragraph 90 of the judgment) on the applicant with the threat of sanctions constituted an essential feature of the legal framework and social context within which he had to adjust his conduct at the time of his act.
	www.worldlii.org /eu/cases/ECHR/2001/229.html (14257 words)

	Untitled Document
		When Gorbachev came to power in the USSR, he was determined to end the Cold War and put pressure on the GDR to liberalize.
		On 9 November 1989, an order was issued to allow all GDR citizens with a passport the right to an exit visa for any border crossing, including Berlin.
		At 11 pm the border guards were faced with a crowd of thousands of people trying to leave.
	www.unc.edu /~uicker/6m/kjuphotoessay/page5.html (133 words)

	[ RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY ]
		The move, which came to be known as the "fall of the Berlin Wall," took reporters, politicians and East German border guards by surprise.
		The next day GDR Interior Minister Friedrich Dicke announced all GDR citizens would be free to travel by the end of the year.
		He told the rally he was certain that GDR citizens would no longer flee to the West and that the two German states remained parts of a single nation.
	www.rferl.org /specials/communism/10years/germany2.asp (1070 words)

	Berlin Wall Trail - Tour
		The accused border guards were sentenced to probation.
		When the government of the GDR built the Wall in 1961, it confiscated private property and evicted residents in neighborhoods along the border from their homes.
		Unfortunately, GDR border guards, who were responsible for the Wall until October 2, 1990, removed many of the signs and tore up the paved road.
	www.esterbauer.com /buecher/html/mauer_e_tour.htm (3151 words)

	Operation Anvil
		The fortifications at the border between the two halves of the city became a visible symbol of German division.
		At the same time, the first group of people living in the border region were sent into exile.
		As late as 1988, just a year before the wall was crushed by the weight of history, the GDR had budgeted billions of marks for the "protection of national borders." On October 3, 1990, with German reunification, brought about in part by strong support from the U.S., the east-west border vanished altogether.
	www.echoworld.com /B02/B0206/B0206-04.htm (342 words)

	[No title]
		Finally, to prevent further escape, the GDR destroyed all houses that were near the wall.
		On August 17, 1962, Peter Fechter, age 18 at the time, attempted to climb the wall and was shot by the patrol guards and left to bleed to death.
		At first the border guards did not want to let the people through, but the people continued to push them until Checkpoint Charley and the Brandenburg Gate were opened.
	www.angelfire.com /ga/Somees/berlin1.html (1851 words)

	Berlin Wall
		On September 20, 1961, the GDR began to demolish all of the houses near the wall.
		Finally, my research found many residents of the GDR who welcomed the Communist Government both during the time the wall was up and to a greater extent immediately after reunification when unemployment and inflation in East Germany soared, it remains our conclusion that most East Germans did not like the communist regime.
		In support of this position is the fact that while thousands of people tried to cross the wall from East Germany to West Germany and over one hundred people died in the attempt, there does not appear to be a single case of anyone climbing the wall in the other direction.
	www.freeessays.cc /db/26/hsz218.shtml (1382 words)

	Rail Travel News posting June 22, 2005
		Traffic noise was far away and the GDR border guards were out of sight, blocked by the building and rubble.
		In high school, I had read William L. Shirer's "Berlin Diary" and he had described our walk on the same paths in the nights of 1939 and 1940 (for German readers, he was the Berlin correspondent for CBS radio news).
		GDR media warned against thinking that the building would someday host the Bundestag.
	host18.hrwebservices.net /~myjackp/ss1971.html (489 words)

	GHDI - Document
		In contrast to the standard use of weapons to deter attacks on a stateâs border from the outside, the GDR government authorized the use of weapons against citizens who were attempting to escape from within its own territory.
		The killing of refugees was not only considered justifiable; GDR border guards were actually rewarded with medals and publicity for their actions.
		A firearm may only be used by order of a superior or by personal decision of the staff deployed in the border service:
	germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org /document.cfm?document_id=37 (245 words)

	Green Left - Former citizens of East Germany persecuted (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Discrimination, marginalisation and persecution of former citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in unified Germany have reached alarming proportions, according to a declaration signed by representatives of all political parties of the former GDR.
		The persecution reached new heights with the conviction and sentencing in August 1997 of the former head of state, Egon Krenz, by the Superior Court of Berlin.
		The trials are clearly political and, according to the declaration, are being used to posthumously “delegitimate and stigmatise the GDR as an `unlawful state'”, as had been demanded of the courts and prosecutors in 1991 by Klaus Kinkel, then minister of justice.
	www.greenleft.org.au /1998/306/21964 (527 words)

	WHKMLA : History of Berlin, 1969-1989
		The OSTPOLITIK pursued by chancellor WILLY BRANDT, ex-mayor of West Berlin, since 1969 was of special importance for the inhabitants of Berlin.
		A TRANSIT AGREEMENT was achieved with the GDR, regulation transit traffic from the FRG to Berlin and in the other direction, reducing the danger of another blockade and limiting arbitrary actions by GDR border guards.
		New border crossing points were opened, visits to relatives made easier.
	www.zum.de /whkmla/region/germany/berlin196989.html (456 words)

	Wired News: East Germany Returns, Virtually (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		A year or two after the Wall came down, he said, nobody would have thought to put up a Web site featuring shoe polish and dish washing liquid from the former East Germany.
		And even fewer people might have found humor in the sites that now freely spoof the GDR.
		At that time, the negative aspects of the GDR -- the border guards who shot to kill or the secret police who watched a citizen's every move -- were still too fresh in people's minds.
	www.wired.com /news/culture/0,1284,34041-2,00.html (503 words)

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