Peter Fechter (14 January 1944 – 17 August 1962) was a bricklayer from East Berlin, who at the age of eighteen became one of the first victims of the Berlin Wall's border guards. Peter Fechter I must admit that I do not know where this photo originates from but I doubt that anyone is still asserting copyright. ... January 14 is the 14th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... August 17 is the 229th day of the year (230th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ... East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961. ...

Background

Main article: Berlin Wall

After World War II, Germany was governed jointly by an Allied Control Council consisting of the four victorious Allied nations — France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Governmental decisions had to be unanimously approved by all four Allies. Germany was divided into Allied Occupation Zones to be administered directly by the military of each Allied state. The German capital, Berlin, was itself specially divided into four zones, one for each Ally, due to its importance. East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Kammergericht, Headquarters of the Allied Control Council The Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in German as the Alliierter Kontrollrat, also referred to as the Four Powers, was a military occupation governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany after the end of World War II in... Look up ally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The C-Pennant Occupation zones in Germany (1945) Capital Berlin (de jure) Political structure Military occupation Governors (1945)  - UK zone F.M. Montgomery  - French zone Gen. ... Location of Berlin within Germany / EU Coordinates Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE3 City subdivisions 12 boroughs Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) Governing parties SPD / Left. ...

As the Cold War escalated, the Potsdam Agreement on managing Germany disintegrated, and the Allied Control Council became ineffective. The country was de facto divided into West Germany and East Germany, corresponding to the areas occupied by the western Allies and the Soviet Union, respectively. Berlin, which lay entirely within the territory of the new East, was divided into West Berlin and East Berlin. From 1945, East Germany's civilian local governments were dominated by social democrats, but in 1949, the Soviets formed a government under the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) led by Walter Ulbricht. Despite tensions, open borders were more or less maintained within Berlin itself for some time. But the increasing flight of many refugees from East Berlin to the West, along with a large number of West Berliners undermining the east's economy by travelling to the East to buy extremely cheap subsidized food from government-run shops, prompted the Communist government to build the Berlin Wall, beginning in 1961. Though officially billed by the government as an "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall," ostensibly to keep lingering elements of the former Nazi regime harbored by the West out of East Berlin, the wall, in contrast to usual border fortifications, was primarily designed to prevent East German citizens from escaping into West Berlin and seeking political asylum. It was manned by armed border guards, under "shoot to kill" orders. For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... The Potsdam Agreement, or the Potsdam Proclamation, was an agreement on policy for the occupation and reconstruction of Germany and other nations after fighting in the European Theatre of World War II had ended with the German surrender of May 8, 1945. ... GDR redirects here. ... Location of Berlin within Germany / EU Coordinates Time zone CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2) Administration Country NUTS Region DE3 City subdivisions 12 boroughs Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit (SPD) Governing parties SPD / Left. ... Boroughs of West Berlin West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ... East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ... Social democracy is a political ideology emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from supporters of Marxism who believed that the transition to a socialist society could be achieved through democratic evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. ... The logo of the SED The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (German: Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands) was the governing party of East Germany from its formation in 1949 until the elections of 1990. ... Walter Ulbricht (June 30, 1893 – August 1, 1973) was a German communist statesman. ... In economics, a subsidy is generally a monetary grant given by a government to lower the price faced by producers or consumers of a good, generally because it is considered to be in the public interest. ... East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... National Socialism redirects here. ... Power lines leading to a trash dump hover just overhead in El Carpio, a Nicaraguan refugee camp in Costa Rica Under international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her... Deadly force or shoot to kill is that level of force which is inherently likely to cause death or great bodily injury. ...

Death

Peter Fechter lies dying after being shot by East German border guards.

About one year after the construction of the wall, Fechter attempted to flee from the GDR (German Democratic Republic) together with his friend Helmut Kulbeik. The plan was to hide in a carpenter's workshop near the wall in Zimmerstrasse and, after observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window into the so-called death-strip (a strip running between the main wall and a parallel fence which they had recently started to construct), run across it, and climb over the two metre (six foot) wall topped with barbed wire into the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin near Checkpoint Charlie. Peter Fechter dying As with Image:Peterfechter1. ... Peter Fechter dying As with Image:Peterfechter1. ... “East Germany” redirects here. ... A selection of forms of barbed wire. ... Checkpoint Charlie as tourist attraction. ...

While both reached the wall, guards fired at them. Although Kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, Fechter, still on the wall, was shot in the pelvis in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. He fell back into the death-strip on the Eastern side, where he remained in view of Western onlookers, including journalists. Despite his screams, he received no medical assistance either from the East or the West side. He bled to death after about an hour. Hundreds in West Berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting "Murderers!" at the border guards.

The lack of medical assistance for Peter Fechter was attributed to mutual fear: western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him (although according to a report in TIME magazine, a U.S. second-lieutenant on the scene received specific orders from the US Commandant in West Berlin to stand firm and do nothing)**. Likewise the head of the GDR border platoon stated that he was afraid to intervene, because of an incident just three days earlier when a GDR soldier Rudi Arnstadt had probably been shot by a Western soldier. Nonetheless, the GDR border soldiers did retrieve Peter Fechter's dead body an hour after he had fallen. Time, (whose trademark is capitalized TIME) is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. ... Portrait photograph of Peter Fechter Peter Fechter (14 January 1944 – 17 August 1962) was a bricklayer from East Berlin, who at the age of 18 became one of the first, and probably the most famous, of the victims of the Berlin Wall. ... Rudi Arnstadt (September 3, 1926 - August 14, 1962). ...

Commemoration

A cross was placed on the western side near the spot where Fechter was shot and bled to death. At the invitation of Willy Brandt, the then mayor of West Berlin, the Yale Russian Chorus sang a German translation of Mozart's Ave verum Corpus near the site in the week following the shooting. On the first anniversary, a wreath was placed there by Willy Brandt and US Commander Polk. After German reunification in 1990, the Peter-Fechter-Stelle memorial was constructed on Zimmerstrasse, at the actual spot where he had died on the Eastern side, and this has been a focal point for some of the commemorations regarding the wall. The shooting has also been the subject of documentaries on German television. Cornelius Ryan dedicated his book The Last Battle to the memory of Fechter. Composer Aulis Sallinen wrote an orchestral work Mauermusik to commemorate Fechter. Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (December 18, 1913 - October 8, 1992) was a German politician, Chancellor of West Germany 1969 – 1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964 – 1987. ... The Yale Russian Chorus, a tenor-bass choral ensemble at Yale University, was established in 1953 by Denis Mickiewicz, who was a Yale student at the time. ... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791) was one of the most significant and influential of all composers of Western classical music. ... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts setting of the ancient hymn Ave verum Corpus, K.618, was written for Anton Stoll (a friend of his and Haydns) who was musical co-ordinator in the parish of Baden, near Vienna. ... Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (December 18, 1913 - October 8, 1992) was a German politician, Chancellor of West Germany 1969 – 1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964 – 1987. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... The memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii commemorates American dead from wars in the Pacific. ... Cornelius Ryan (5 June 1920 – 23 November 1974) was an Irish-American journalist and author mainly known for his writings on popular military history, especially World War II. His two best-known books are The Longest Day (1959), which tells the story of the D-Day (day one of the... Aulis Sallinen (born April 9, 1935) is a Finnish contemporary classical music composer. ...

Trial

In March 1997 two former East German guards, Rolf Friedrich and Erich Schreiber, faced manslaughter charges for Fechter's death, at which they admitted to his shooting. They were both convicted, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment on probation.

**It also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the West had indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic pathologist Otto Prokop, "Fechter had no chance of survival. The shot in the right hip had caused severe internal injuries."

External links

• The Wall Comes Tumbling Down, excerpt from a biography of Leonard Bernstein
• Berlin Wall at Zimmerstrasse, Photos near the location of Fechter's death, taken in 1961