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Polish victims who died at the Berlin Wall: Franciszek Piesik and Czesław Kukuczka

At least 139 people lost their lives trying to flee over the Berlin Wall. Two of them were Polish citizens, Franciszek Piesik and Czesław Kukuczka. That said, the list of victims is not yet binding. Historians are continually coming across further hitherto unknown cases of death and are attempting to reconstruct the incidents.

[The victims of the Berlin Wall are commemorated in the multimedia website Chronik-der-Mauer.de, which was set up in 2004 by the Federal Centre for Political Education, Deutschlandradio and the Centre of Contemporary History Research in Potsdam. Information on those who died along with a corresponding list of names is continually being updated.]

Franciszek Piesik (l) and Czesław Kukuczka

Christian Gering and family collection

On 29th March 1974 in the Embassy of the People’s Republic of Poland (Unten den Linden, East Berlin) there were scenes resembling an action film. The Polish fireman Czesław Kukuczka demanded an immediate licence to emigrate to the West or he would bomb the building. A few years earlier in 1967 a young inland waterways sailor, Franciszek Piesik, made a similarly spectacular attempt to flee to West Berlin in a boat. For both men the dream of freedom ended tragically. A total of 139 people lost their lives trying to flee over the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall, the imposing symbol of the Cold War for 28 years, divided the city for 28 years. It was erected on 13th August 1961 and pulled down on 9th November 1989. Its history is directly linked to the division of Germany into four occupying zones after the Second World War: the Soviet, the American, the French and the British. The Allies had agreed to give the city of Berlin a special status and it was divided into four sectors. The western suburbs were administrated by France, the United States and Great Britain, whereas East Berlin was given to the Soviet Union.

The first travel restrictions between the zones of the divided country were introduced directly after the end of the war. As time went by they became ever more rigorous. Two of these were the introduction of the so-called Interzonenpasspflicht (Lit: Inter-Zone Pass Duty) and the erection of barbed wire, alarm systems and control posts along the border between the two German states. The growing tension between the Soviet Union and the Western powers led to a further sharpening of the exit regulations. Here the growing number of citizens living in East Germany who moved to the West now proved to be the most troubling problem for the East German (GDR) government. Estimates reckon that around 3,800,000 people left the country between the foundation of the GDR in 1949 and the building of the Wall, many of them by way of Berlin since the border there remained open for many years and it was particularly difficult to control travel between the East and West of the city.

In order to prevent the exodus of mostly young and well educated citizens the GDR government decided to build the Wall to separate the Soviet zone from the other zones in Berlin. The plans were kept secret. The extent of the wall and the vehemence with which it was built came as a complete surprise to the Allies. In the night of the 12th and 13th August 1961 the streets and railway lines which led to the Western part of Berlin were blocked off with barbed wire. In the following weeks this provisional measure was replaced by a 156 kilometre wall. The final division of the city had become a reality.

Even when the Berlin Wall made it almost impossible for the citizens of the GDR and other communist states to flee the city to the West, it was not enough to stop people making the attempt. Estimates say that, between 1961 and 1989, 5075 people succeeded in crossing the border illegally. But not everyone was so lucky. At least 139 people lost their lives trying to escape. Two of the victims of the Wall were Polish citizens.