Kurt Lichtenstein
Encyclopedia
Kurt Lichtenstein was a communist journalist, and his death was a notable result of the German Democratic Republic
's border control policies.
Lichtenstein was the first man shot on the inner German border after the establishment of the Berlin Wall
in August 1961. The circumstances were revisited in a criminal trial in 1997. The two defendants were acquitted of manslaughter.
in the Prenzlauer Berg district, where he attended primary and higher secondary school. He left high school to work as an errand boy at a clothing store, later training as a tool maker. Unemployed in 1932-1933, Lichtenstein emigrated for political reasons. His parents divorced in 1924, and were deported with his sister to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941, where they are presumed to have died. In 1946, Lichtenstein married Gertrud Klapputh, an affiliate of the German Communist Party. They had two daughters, born in 1946 and 1948 and a son, born in 1947. Lichtenstein spent the most part of his later life as a journalist for political newspapers.
(KJVD) in 1928, and by 1931 was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
(KPD). In 1933, he emigrated to the Soviet Union due to racial and political persecution. After political training, Lichtenstein worked for the KJVD in the then politically autonomous Saarland
. At this time he personally knew Erich Honecker
. After the Saarland was annexed by Germany in 1935, he went to Paris where he was active in the communist movement
, using the pseudonyms "Herbert", "Lauterbur", "Gaston Bergeaud" and "Jules Bardier.
. Until 1937 he served in the Thalmann Battalion
as a Political Commissar. At times he was involved as a journalist in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain. In this capacity he acted as the editor of the German edition of the International Brigade newspaper, Volontaire de la Liberté. He also worked for a Republican radio station. During the Battle of Ebro in 1938, as a member of a machine gun
unit, he was wounded. In the final phase of the war he was demoted for cowardice before the enemy for his involvement in a withdrawal. After the Spanish Civil War, Lichtenstein fled to France. Due to the Second World War, the French state interned Lichtenstein in southern France in 1939 as an enemy alien. Fearing that the Vichy
government would hand control of the camps to the Gestapo
, Lichtenstein fled. On Communist Party instructions he joined the French Resistance in Toulouse. Also on Communist Party orders, Lichtenstein became a foreign worker in France, working using a false identity in a defense industry in Thuringia
. In 1945 he was handed over to French forces and interned as a suspected nazi. The French Communist Party
intervened to free him, and he returned to Germany.
for the Communist Party. He was a journalist for several communist-oriented newspapers. He also edited the Neuen Volkszeitung (New People's Daily). Between 1947 and 1950 he was a Communist Party member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. During inner-party purges in 1950, he was associated with the disgrace and fall of Kurt Müller. In 1953 Lichtenstein was expelled for anti-party activities and dismissed as chief editor of the Neuen Volkszeitung. For several years he worked odd jobs. He joined the German Socialist Party (SPD). In 1958 he received a journalistic appointment to the SPD-oriented Westfälische Rundschau which appeared in Dortmund
.
in an ostentatious red car, and by 12 October 1961 was in Wolfsburg
in Lower Saxony
. Around noon he reported to a border post in Brome-Zicherie. He followed county road 85, along the border, towards the Parsau Kaiser angle. At 6.5 kilometers, he talked with members of a LPG Brigade on German Democratic Republic (East German) territory. He crossed the shallow border ditch and the 10 meter wide border control strip. Two border guards hailed him. As Lichtenstein was running in the direction of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the border guards shot him with submachine gun
s. Lichtenstein's body was in the border ditch, with one fifth of his body located on the Western side of the border. East German border guards transported him to a hospital, where he died. His body was cremated, and the ashes returned to his widow by post.
In October 1961 a funeral service took place in Dortmund. The German Federal Republic's minister for All German Affairs, Ernst Lemmer, and the SPD member Herbert Wehner, were amongst the mourners.
tension. The death was used politically by Western and Eastern powers. In the West, press and government reacted with outrage and disgust, and Lichtenstein was converted into a martyr. For the East this appeared to be a provoking border incident. The Socialist Unity Party
(SED) central newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany) carried the headline, "Provocateur violates the state border of the GDR."
Despite eyewitness accounts of the incident from both East and West Germans, rumors abounded that Lichtenstein had been killed for other reasons. Alternate theories of Lichtenstein's death have focused on his earlier political work with and his departure from the German Communist Party.
In late 1961, a memorial was erected to Lichtenstein near the place of his death. The memorial consisted of a cross and an explanatory sign that read "Ein Deutscher, von Deutschen erschossen Kurt Lichtenstein † 12.10.1961" (A German, shot to death by Germans, Kurt Lichtenstein 12.10.1961) The memorial became a place of political demonstration. Other signs were erected on the site, with messages that framed the shooting as a deliberate murder. In 1962, the memorial was the site of a large demonstration.
The incident was revisited in the 1990s, and the border guard who had shot Lichtenstein stood trial for homicide. In 1997, the shooter was acquitted on the grounds that he was following orders and had no intent to kill.
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
's border control policies.
Lichtenstein was the first man shot on the inner German border after the establishment of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
in August 1961. The circumstances were revisited in a criminal trial in 1997. The two defendants were acquitted of manslaughter.
Personal life
Kurt Lichtenstein was the son of Jewish merchant and shoemaker Georg Lichtenstein and Henriette Lichtenstein (née Haase). He grew up in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in the Prenzlauer Berg district, where he attended primary and higher secondary school. He left high school to work as an errand boy at a clothing store, later training as a tool maker. Unemployed in 1932-1933, Lichtenstein emigrated for political reasons. His parents divorced in 1924, and were deported with his sister to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941, where they are presumed to have died. In 1946, Lichtenstein married Gertrud Klapputh, an affiliate of the German Communist Party. They had two daughters, born in 1946 and 1948 and a son, born in 1947. Lichtenstein spent the most part of his later life as a journalist for political newspapers.
Political life
At the age of 17, Liechtenstein joined the Communist Youth LeagueCommunist Youth League
The Communist Youth League of China also known as the China Youth League is a youth movement of the People's Republic of China for youth between the ages of fourteen and twenty-eight, run by Communist Party of China. The league is organized on the party pattern. Its leader is its First Secretary...
(KJVD) in 1928, and by 1931 was a member of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(KPD). In 1933, he emigrated to the Soviet Union due to racial and political persecution. After political training, Lichtenstein worked for the KJVD in the then politically autonomous Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
. At this time he personally knew Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker was a German communist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well from Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976....
. After the Saarland was annexed by Germany in 1935, he went to Paris where he was active in the communist movement
Communist Movement
Communist Movement was a political party in Spain...
, using the pseudonyms "Herbert", "Lauterbur", "Gaston Bergeaud" and "Jules Bardier.
Spanish Civil War and World War II
At the end of 1936 Lichtenstein went to Spain as an International Brigade volunteer, serving the Republic in the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. Until 1937 he served in the Thalmann Battalion
Thälmann Battalion
The Thälmann Battalion was a battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. It was named after the imprisoned German communist leader Ernst Thälmann and included approximately 1,500 people, mainly Germans, Austrians, Swiss and Scandinavians. The battalion fought in the defence...
as a Political Commissar. At times he was involved as a journalist in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain. In this capacity he acted as the editor of the German edition of the International Brigade newspaper, Volontaire de la Liberté. He also worked for a Republican radio station. During the Battle of Ebro in 1938, as a member of a machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
unit, he was wounded. In the final phase of the war he was demoted for cowardice before the enemy for his involvement in a withdrawal. After the Spanish Civil War, Lichtenstein fled to France. Due to the Second World War, the French state interned Lichtenstein in southern France in 1939 as an enemy alien. Fearing that the Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
government would hand control of the camps to the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, Lichtenstein fled. On Communist Party instructions he joined the French Resistance in Toulouse. Also on Communist Party orders, Lichtenstein became a foreign worker in France, working using a false identity in a defense industry in Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
. In 1945 he was handed over to French forces and interned as a suspected nazi. The French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
intervened to free him, and he returned to Germany.
Post-War
After the Second World War Lichtenstein worked in the RuhrRuhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...
for the Communist Party. He was a journalist for several communist-oriented newspapers. He also edited the Neuen Volkszeitung (New People's Daily). Between 1947 and 1950 he was a Communist Party member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. During inner-party purges in 1950, he was associated with the disgrace and fall of Kurt Müller. In 1953 Lichtenstein was expelled for anti-party activities and dismissed as chief editor of the Neuen Volkszeitung. For several years he worked odd jobs. He joined the German Socialist Party (SPD). In 1958 he received a journalistic appointment to the SPD-oriented Westfälische Rundschau which appeared in Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
.
Death
In October 1961 Lichtenstein was reporting on the inner German border. He wanted to travel the entire inner German border to report on the situation two months after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Lichtenstein began his trip in LübeckLübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
in an ostentatious red car, and by 12 October 1961 was in Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig , and is mainly notable as the headquarters of Volkswagen AG...
in Lower Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. Around noon he reported to a border post in Brome-Zicherie. He followed county road 85, along the border, towards the Parsau Kaiser angle. At 6.5 kilometers, he talked with members of a LPG Brigade on German Democratic Republic (East German) territory. He crossed the shallow border ditch and the 10 meter wide border control strip. Two border guards hailed him. As Lichtenstein was running in the direction of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the border guards shot him with submachine gun
Submachine gun
A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...
s. Lichtenstein's body was in the border ditch, with one fifth of his body located on the Western side of the border. East German border guards transported him to a hospital, where he died. His body was cremated, and the ashes returned to his widow by post.
In October 1961 a funeral service took place in Dortmund. The German Federal Republic's minister for All German Affairs, Ernst Lemmer, and the SPD member Herbert Wehner, were amongst the mourners.
Aftermath
The Lichtenstein border incident occurred during a period of high Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
tension. The death was used politically by Western and Eastern powers. In the West, press and government reacted with outrage and disgust, and Lichtenstein was converted into a martyr. For the East this appeared to be a provoking border incident. The Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(SED) central newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany) carried the headline, "Provocateur violates the state border of the GDR."
Despite eyewitness accounts of the incident from both East and West Germans, rumors abounded that Lichtenstein had been killed for other reasons. Alternate theories of Lichtenstein's death have focused on his earlier political work with and his departure from the German Communist Party.
In late 1961, a memorial was erected to Lichtenstein near the place of his death. The memorial consisted of a cross and an explanatory sign that read "Ein Deutscher, von Deutschen erschossen Kurt Lichtenstein † 12.10.1961" (A German, shot to death by Germans, Kurt Lichtenstein 12.10.1961) The memorial became a place of political demonstration. Other signs were erected on the site, with messages that framed the shooting as a deliberate murder. In 1962, the memorial was the site of a large demonstration.
The incident was revisited in the 1990s, and the border guard who had shot Lichtenstein stood trial for homicide. In 1997, the shooter was acquitted on the grounds that he was following orders and had no intent to kill.