Germany: Unprecedented conviction for murder of ex-Stasi agent, 50 years later

German justice on Monday sentenced a former agent of the Stasi, the political police of the communist GDR, to ten years in prison for the murder of a Pole who tried to flee to the West 50 years ago, a judgment of historic significance.

The Berlin court has “the indubitable conviction” that Martin Naumann, 80, is the author of the shots that cost the life of the 38-year-old man while he was trying to escape through the Friedrichstrasse border crossing in Berlin in 1974, declared the presiding judge Bernd Miczajka.

Even if the shooter, aged 31 at the time of the events, did not act “for personal reasons”, he “mercilessly carried out” an act “planned by the Stasi”, the fearsome East German secret police during the Cold War, detailed the judge.

The German prosecutor had requested twelve years in prison for the former lieutenant, now retired.

The man rejected the accusation through his lawyers, who requested his acquittal, considering the evidence that he was the shooter insufficient. He can still appeal.

According to Daniela Münkel, a secret police archive official in Berlin, with Monday's verdict he becomes the first former secret police agent from the former communist East Germany to be convicted of murder.

– Cold War scent –

This trial, recorded because of its historical value, has since its launch in March plunged the country back to the Cold War, a period during which Germany was split in two by the Iron Curtain between the FRG in the West and the GDR in the East.

It is the culmination of decades of laborious investigation, sometimes abandoned and then reopened, also on the Polish side.

It was only made possible by the emergence of new information found by two German and Polish historians in the Stasi archives in 2016, linking Mr. Naumann to the fugitive's death, and the discovery of new witnesses. An extradition request from Poland then prompted the Berlin prosecutor's office to reopen the case.

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Photo taken on November 17, 1989 and made available on November 9, 2019 of a section of the Berlin Wall and the Allied crossing point Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Berlin in Friedrichstrasse in Berlin © AFP – Jean-Philippe LACOUR

Czeslaw Kukuczka, who dreamed of a life in the “free world”, is one of at least 140 people who died between 1961 and 1989 trying to cross the Berlin Wall.

On March 29, 1974, he burst into the Polish embassy in the former communist East Berlin with a fake bomb to force his departure to the West.

Alerted by Poland, the German secret police then made him believe that his release had been accepted. But at the moment when the man thought he had managed to escape after having passed two checkpoints without incident, agent Naumann shot him dead, an act that earned him a decoration.

A construction company employee, Czeslaw Kukuczka had three children who joined the case as civil parties but did not attend the trial.

– “Victory for justice”

For Filip Ganczak, the Polish historian who helped gather evidence against the convicted man, this judgment constitutes “a victory for justice”, even if it comes late.

“I consider this judgment as an important signal”, he said, while expressing skepticism about the fact that it will lead to “similar trials” in the future.

The Union of Victims of the Communist Regime (UOKG) welcomed the judgment, its president Dieter Dombrowski however considering it “shocking” that the prosecution had only acted at the insistence of the Polish authorities.

Over the years In 1990, 251 people were charged with crimes committed on behalf of the Stasi, according to government records.

Two-thirds of them, including many executives such as border guards, were acquitted or the charges against them dropped, mostly due to lack of evidence or lack of testimony.

Only 87 were convicted, most of them to light sentences.

Even Erich Mielke himself could not be convicted for his activities as head of the Stasi from 1957 to 1989, due to insufficient charges.

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