Trial of former East German police officer comes after years of investigation (representative)
Berlin:
A former Stasi officer will go on trial in Germany on Thursday on charges of fatally shooting a Polish man as he tried to flee to West Berlin nearly 50 years ago, in a case that could shape the way communist-era killings are handled.
The 80-year-old defendant, former East German secret police member Martin N., was accused of murdering Czeslaw Kukuchka at a Berlin border crossing.
The delay in bringing charges points to the challenges Germany faces in bringing East German officials to justice for crimes committed by the communist government to prevent citizens from fleeing to the West.
At least 140 people were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989, but border guards and other East German officials tried so far have generally been charged with manslaughter, a lesser charge. The statute of limitations may be extended. In Martin N’s case, it was exhausted.
He is accused of shooting Kukuchka on March 29, 1974, as she passed through border control at East Berlin’s Friedrichstraße train station, the most famous crossing in the divided city One of the points.
Earlier in the day, Kukuchka was said to have gone to the Polish embassy in the communist capital and asked to travel to the Western country, according to the Berlin court.
Kukuchka was carrying a fake bomb and threatened to detonate the device if his demands were not met.
Rendering “harmless”
The details of the event are detailed in the research work of two historians, Hans-Hermann Hertle and Filip Ganczak.
According to research, Polish embassy staff informed the East German secret police about Kukuczka’s threat.
Stasi officers reportedly decided to make Kukuchka think he would be allowed to leave the country and escorted him to the nearby Friedrichstraße crossing.
But rather than facilitating his journey to the West, officers were ordered to render Kukuchka “harmless,” a common euphemism used in Stasi documents to eliminate political opponents, according to historians.
The court said Kukuchka was traveling through the border crossing to West Berlin when Martin N. allegedly shot him in the back “from a hiding place.”
The victim’s children are co-plaintiffs in the case but will not attend the trial.
The lawyer for Kukuchka’s daughter, Hans-Jurgen Forster, said Martin N. was “the last link in the chain of command” who ordered the killing.
Foster and his family want the investigation into Kukuchka’s death to be expanded to include anyone who may have been involved in the murder and call them as witnesses.
“Some people are still alive,” Foster told AFP, although two of the officers involved were dead.
historic trial
Daniela Muenker, director of Berlin’s Stasi archives, told AFP that it would “not be easy” for the two officers to stand trial for the killings even if they were still alive.
“They were not the ones carrying out the orders,” Munnkel said.
Even Erich Mielke, Stasi chief from 1957 to 1989, avoided punishment for his role in the secret police after the fall of the Berlin Wall due to a lack of evidence.
But Milk was sentenced to six years in prison in 1993 for the 1931 murders of two police officers as a young communist activist.
The trial of Martin N. will come at the end of a multi-year investigation, documented for its historical importance.
In 2021, Poland issued a European arrest warrant for the former Stasi official, prompting German authorities to take up the stalled case.
In October 2023, Martin N. was finally charged with murder.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
