Society

A former Stasi officer, Martin Naumann, now 80, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 1974 murder of Polish firefighter Czesław Kukuczka at a border crossing in Berlin.


Kukuczka had entered the Polish embassy in East Berlin on the pretext that he was carrying a bomb on him that he would detonate if he was not allowed to go to the West. Stasi agents provided him with a visa and said he was free to go to the West. However, he was shot in the back by Naumann after passing several checkpoints. The murder was covered up for decades and Kukuczka's family never found out the truth about his death.


The case was reopened after historian Stefan Appelius discovered documents about the incident in the Stasi archives. This led to Naumann's arrest in 2021. 


Naumanns denied the allegations, but the court found him guilty of carrying out orders to 'render [Kukuczka] harmless'. Naumann was one of the first former East German officials to be charged with murder, rather than manslaughter, for such acts. 


Naumann lived peacefully in Leipzig until his past came to light in 2016. His trial marks a new step in holding former GDR officials accountable for deaths on the border during the Cold War: he was charged not with manslaughter, but with murder.


Between 1961 and 1989, when the Wall split Berlin in two, an estimated 140 people died trying to cross the border.

(Fausto/Source: Bild, Guardian/Illustration picture: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow)