As Germany celebrates the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this year, a verdict has fallen, reminding us of the dark days of the East German regime. On Monday, October 14, an 80-year-old former lieutenant of the Stasi – the Ministry of State Security in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) between 1950 and 1990 – was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Berlin court. The man, Martin Naumann, was found guilty of shooting dead Czeslaw Kukuczka, a 38-year-old Polish father of three, on March 29, 1974, as he attempted to cross into West Berlin. The court ruled that he had been the victim of an ambush organized by the East German services. This was one of the few sentences handed down to a former Stasi agent.
On this day, Kukuczka had gone to the Polish embassy, then located near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, where he threatened to detonate a bomb allegedly placed in his bag if he was not immediately authorized to cross to the West. The man was then escorted by Stasi police officers, who had themselves been alerted by the embassy, to Friedrichstrasse station, one of the crossing points between the two parts of the city. After being checked, he was on his way to the tunnel leading to the West Berlin subway when he was shot. The investigation later revealed that he had no bomb in his bag.
The court ruled that Naumann had not acted on his own initiative, since he had been ordered to put the man "out of harm's way," but that he had nevertheless executed him "without mercy" – having shot him in the back when he was only two meters away when he could have simply immobilized him. The retired Naumann remained silent until the end of the trial. His lawyer had asked for acquittal, arguing that it had not been proven that he was the shooter. He can still appeal.
Uncovered with the publication of the Stasi archives after the fall of the Wall, the case remained unresolved for a long time, despite eyewitness accounts. According to the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, the reopening of the case by German authorities was prompted by a Polish extradition request, following new evidence discovered by historians in 2016. For several decades, the victim's wife and children were unaware of the circumstances in which he had disappeared. It was only 50 years later that his children and sister filed a civil suit.
Paradoxically, it was Naumann's zeal that enabled the courts to identify him after the event. The East German authorities had put together a file in order to award him a decoration, highlighting that he had been given a "personal mission" to repel "a serious provocation at the border" and that he had "incapacitated" a man "using a firearm."
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