Word: heinrichs
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When East German border guard Ingo Heinrich killed a man fleeing toward the freedom of West Berlin in February 1989, Heinrich was just following orders. "Shoot to kill" was the command for dealing with people who tried to escape across the border, and in the eyes of Heinrich's supervisors his actions were not merely legal but commendable. Three years later, Heinrich, 27, lives in the same Berlin, but a different government holds sway and new laws prevail. Now he is, retroactively, a felon. Last week he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison -- specifically...
...established in West Germany decades ago, during trials of former Nazi leaders. Like Seidel, many Germans would apply the same theory in judging the discredited communist regime. But there are troubling doubts about the fairness of the principle or how it is applied. That was abundantly clear in Heinrich's case: right after the verdict, the prosecution joined the defense in vowing to appeal the sentence as too harsh...
...fair to single out Heinrich and a few others for what many did? During the 28 years the Berlin Wall divided Germany's once and future capital, an estimated 200 people were killed and 700 injured. Hundreds of sharpshooters were involved. Given the difficulty of reconstructing events up to decades old, only 38 shooters have been identified. Although hundreds of thousands of East Germans spied on friends and neighbors and millions were complicit in some part of the government, only about 500 people are under investigation, many for schemes involving fraud for personal gain rather than diligence to duty...
...none has gone to jail. The country's former leader, Erich Honecker, fled to Moscow to evade trial, and is living there under diplomatic protection at the Chilean embassy -- while suing the new government to restore his retirement pay. A letter from a West German retiree to one of Heinrich's co-defendants, border guard Andreas Kuhnpast, cynically recalled the Nazi trials. "Hold your head up high," it said. "Once again they're trying to hang the small fry and let the big shots run." Chancellor Helmut Kohl voiced similar sentiments at a lunch with foreign journalists last week. Said...
...against the moral complexities are the simple truths that no one was compelled to become a border guard and not all border guards shot to kill. Three others went on trial with Heinrich. Kuhnpast was given a suspended sentence because his bullets went wide. A third guard shot into the ground, and a fourth told colleagues to shoot only to apprehend; they were acquitted. Heinrich has expressed regret. But he is alive, and Chris Gueffroy, a 20-year- old waiter who only wanted to be free, is dead. Neither could have foreseen that Berlin's Wall would fall nine months...