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

Edit:

In August 2021, at the request of the Public Prosecutor of the Branch Office of the Commission for the Persecution of Crimes against the Polish People in Poznań (Oddziałowa Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu w Poznaniu), Poznań District Court (Sąd Okręgowy w Poznaniu) issued a European arrest warrant against the German citizen Manfred N. The former officer of the Ministry for State Security of the former GDR (Stasi) is alleged to have shot and fatally wounded Czesław Kukuczka at the Friedrichstraße border crossing on 29 March 1974.

The communiqué from the Commission for the Persecution of Crimes against the Polish people states:

“The investigations carried out by the Oddziałowa Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu w Poznaniu showed, without doubt, that the Ministry for State Security in the former GDR had set a trap for Czesław K. and had planned from the outset to prevent him from leaving East Berlin, even if this would cost him his life. The perpetrator fired the fatal shot insidiously and without warning into the victim’s back when he no longer posed a threat. He tacitly accepted his death. Czesław K., who was not carrying an explosive device, was killed in a cowardly manner, whereby, in asserting that he had had a firearm and had threatened the border soldiers with it, the East German authorities created a red herring designed to make their activities appear legitimate. Therefore, the action taken by the Stasi were aimed at preventing Czesław K. from crossing the border at any price whilst violating his basic human right in the name of the political objectives of a totalitarian state. In fact, this incident was an execution without trial.”[1]

This was the very first time that this type of order of summary punishment was issued against a foreign citizen suspected of having committed Communist crimes. However, there will be no prosecution of Hans Sabath, the former Head of the Chief of Staff of the Stasi and head of the campaign to “neutralise Kukuczka”. He died in 1986.

Monika Stefanek, August 2021