Читать книгу Where in the World is the Berlin Wall?. 170 Sites around the World онлайн

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On 15^th August 1961, 19-year-old East German soldier, Conrad Schumann, jumped over the barbed wire into the West. Schumann, from Zschochau, Saxony, had been sent with his police unit to Berlin and was supposed to guard the border. Doubts about the sense of what he was doing at the border made him leap into freedom. Schumann was the first of over 2,500 border soldiers who evaded service on the border (thus potentially having to shoot at their compatriots) by fleeing to the West.³³

Twelve days after the construction of the Wall began, the first fatal shots were fired at the border. In the afternoon of 24 August 1961, 24-year-old Günter Litfin attempted to flee to West Berlin via the S-Bahn line near the Charité hospital to West Berlin.³⁴ Litfin lived and worked in West Berlin and had been visiting his family in the East. He was shocked to find his way back to the West suddenly blocked. He began to look for a way to get back home. Through a barrage of fire, the border guards tried to dissuade the defenceless swimmer from his intention, then they aimed at his head. He was hit and disappeared under the water. A little while later, he was pulled from the water – dead. Günter Litfin was the first victim to be shot at the border. He was, however, not the last. Until the fall of the Wall, refugees tried again and again to overcome the barriers, despite the deadly threat.³⁵