Word: fechter
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Berlin will long remember a young East German named Peter Fechter who last summer tried to escape across the Wall and was shot down by the Red border cops. Wounded, he was left to bleed to death by the Communists, while U.S. soldiers, under strict instructions to avoid "incidents," were not allowed to cross a few feet into East Berlin and help the dying man. When a wave of disgust swept Germany, the Allies responded by a feeble gesture: they stationed an ambulance at Checkpoint Charlie in the U.S. sector to pick up any future wounded fugitive and take...
...Peter Fechter's unattended death at the Berlin Wall [Aug. 31] should not be held to the account of the American troops there...
...Berlin to the boil, Russia last week let the city simmer a while. Soviet armored cars continued to shuttle through the Western sector; they drew only scowls from the crowds that had stoned them the week before. More than 300 East Berliners turned out for the funeral of Peter Fechter, the 18-year-old bricklayer who had been shot and left to die while trying to cross the Wall. Surest sign of relaxed tensions was the Western alliance's return to disarray. Despite President Kennedy's announcement that the Big Four had agreed "in principle" to a foreign...
...order: "Lieutenant, you have your orders. Stand fast. Do nothing." Not knowing the reason for the Americans' inaction, an agonized crowd swirled around the command post crying: "For God's sake, go get him." When a German reporter asked why the American troops did not rescue Fechter. one G.I. replied, "This is not our problem...
Fifty-five minutes after he had fallen to the ground, Peter Fechter's lifeless body was carted away by Communist cops. He was the 50th East German known to have been killed while attempting to breach the Wall...