On August 13, 1961, Germany was violently divided by the construction of the inner-German border, which brought countless suffering to the German people. Inseparably linked to this are the many victims of the Wall who died as a result of the GDR’s SED regime. Unfortunately, even after 61 years, there is still no street in the capital that commemorates Peter Fechter, the world‘s most famous victim of the Wall.
On August 17, 1962, the then 18-year-old Peter Fechter bled to death in full view of the world public right in front of the Wall on Zimmerstrasse in Kreuzberg, near the Allied border crossing Checkpoint Charlie.
The fact that his agonizing death became a worldwide synonym for the murder at the Wall was thanks to two men on site: the West Berlin cameraman Herbert Ernst (1939 – 2019), who – more or less by chance close to the event – was responsible for the rescue and transport of Fechter captured on celluloid forever. His film was included in the Memory of the World by UNESCO in 2010.
At around 2:00 p.m. on August 17, 1962, Peter Fechter and his friend Helmut Kulbeik had reached the Wall on Zimmerstrasse. Both wanted to escape to freedom. While Kulbeik managed to escape surprisingly quickly, two riflemen, Sergeant Rolf Friedrich and Private Erich Schreiber, opened fire on Fechter with their submachine guns. He collapsed deadly in front of the wall. Fechter screamed for help for almost an hour before he died.
Word of the event had spread in no time at all, and people had gathered behind the West Berlin police’s spontaneously erected barricades. While the East Berlin border guards recovered the body and carried it away, angry shouts echoed over the wall to the east: “Murderer! Murderer!”
The murderers accused after the fall of the Wall were found guilty of “manslaughter”, the non-commissioned officer was sentenced to one year and nine months and the private to a youth sentence of one year and eight months “on probation”.
The Americans at the nearby checkpoint, who begged for help, refused help, although the GDR border guards were not allowed to intervene against Allied soldiers. Today we know that this decision, which was hotly disputed at the time, was not “self-discovery”. The officer on duty at the checkpoint was following direct instructions from the capital, Washington.
In 1962 the first street signs were pasted over
Just one day after the murder of Peter Fechter, street signs in the vicinity of the crime scene had his name pasted over them; since then – ie for 61 years now – a veritable battle of opinions has been raging over the renaming of Zimmerstrasse after the Wall victim Peter Fechter.
The debate is taking on more and more tragic and bizarre features. After all, the (former) governing mayors Eberhard Diepgen (CDU) and Klaus Wowereit (SPD) had spoken out in favor of a Peter-Fechter-Straße in the past. The current ruler, Kai Wegner (CDU), had already campaigned in 2012, when he was still General Secretary of the CDU, for Zimmerstraße to be repurposed.
On the other hand, the Mitte and Kreuzberg districts responsible for Zimmerstrasse are trying their hand at dialectical egg dance. When asked about the subject several times, the administrations and politicians refer to the “actual responsibility” of the other district.
Zimmerstraße is actually on the district border: the houses on the west side belong to Kreuzberg, the street and the houses on the east side belong to the Mitte district.
But other (preventive) arguments must also be used. For example, the street law only allows “new names after women”, etc. It was and is not known that the former APO revolutionary Rudi Dutschke would have declared himself a woman. Nevertheless, the equally historic Kochstrasse was named after Dutschke. And that despite the fact that “double designations” were excluded in the cited road law. A “Rudi-Dutschke-Weg” was named after Rudi Dutschke in the area of the Free University in Dahlem.
The struggle for a Peter Fechter street
The 17 June Association, an association founded by former participants in West Berlin after the 1953 uprising, has also been fighting for a Peter-Fechter-Straße for decades. On the 50th anniversary of Peter Fechter’s death, the association initiated a collection of signatures, and subsequently wrote countless letters to the parliamentary groups in the district assemblies (BVV) of Mitte and Kreuzberg and the Berlin House of Representatives.
Members of the association demonstrated with signs “Peter-Fechter-Straße now” at the Peter-Fechter-Stele in Zimmerstraße during the obligatory wreath-laying ceremony by politicians and institutions on August 17, 2023.
The Union of Victims’ Associations (UOKG) finally joined the call for a renaming. As late as last year, its chairman Dieter Dombrowski announced that “the BVV had been written to and addressed in both districts and very good results had been achieved.” “A positive decision” can now be expected.
Only a year later, Dombrowski (CDU), when asked to make a corresponding statement at a planned press conference, said that he could not comment on it because it had been agreed that this project would not be carried out at present due to Peter Fechter’s sister’s resistance to renaming to follow up.
The chairman of the Berlin Wall Foundation made a similar statement to the June 17 Association. When asked to make the premises available for a planned press conference on the subject of “Peter-Fechter-Strasse” and to submit his own statement on the subject, the latter explained that it had been agreed with the UOKG and the Foundation for Work-Up that the subject “not to follow up”. The foundation also referred to the resistance of Fechter’s sister, the elderly Gisela Geue.
stay true to core beliefs
Tatjana Sterneberg, who was on the board of the June 17 Association until June of this year, does not want to follow these arguments: “Unlike several federal states, Berlin still has no street after this symbol of the murders on the Wall, 61 years after Fechter’s death named, this is no longer comprehensible. “
The association has even less understanding for the “backtracking” of institutions involved in the topic, such as the UOKG. The umbrella organization would very quickly take initiatives and loudly announce its “own activity” without “own commitment on the street” and then very quickly subordinate itself to a political mainstream. “After all, these institutions are about money and influence, which only politics can convey. Things that are actually taken for granted are quickly left out,” criticizes Sterneberg.
Mike Mutterlose, the historical association’s newly elected chairman in June, agrees: “We must remain true to our core beliefs, which give rise to our legitimate demands. Otherwise we could immediately dissolve our representation of victims’ interests. That would be more honest than the endless creation of excuses adapted to politics. Even a posthumous Peter Fechter did not deserve this attitude.”
Eberhart Diepgen responded warmly and positively to a request from the association as to whether he could update his statement from 2012 for a Peter-Fechter-Straße. Klaus Wowereit is on vacation and therefore could not (yet) reply. The current governor, Kai Wegner, who is also on vacation, was asked by the Senate Chancellery to confirm his 2012 approval of a Peter-Fechter-Straße. This was not available at the time of going to press.
To person:
Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel (born 1944) grew up in Berlin-Zehlendorf. He was politicized by the uprising in Hungary. After the Wall was built, he joined the idea of non-violent resistance after Mahatma Gandhi. He conducted several hunger strikes at memorials to victims of the Wall. He was arrested at Checkpoint Charlie after a demonstration in 1965 and sentenced to eight years in prison in 1966. After he was bought out by the Federal Republic of Germany at the end of 1966, he continued to resist the Wall until the end.
He gained notoriety with a protest on August 13, 1989, when he laid himself across the “white line” at Checkpoint Charlie: feet in the West, head and heart in the East. In 1990 he went on a hunger strike in front of the (last) East German Ministry of Justice in order to obtain the resignation of the Minister of Justice, who had previously served in this office before Ulbricht and Honecker. Eventually he resigned. After years of fighting, he succeeded in establishing a “Place of the 1953 People’s Uprising” in Berlin. He is honorary chairman of the June 17 Association, which was founded in 1957 by former insurgents and members of the June 17 Committee. He was a member there for the first time in 1965.