Dorit Schmiel

Dorit Schmiel (April 25, 1941, Berlin – February 19, 1962, Berlin) was a German woman who died while trying to cross the Berlin Wall. At the age of 20, she was fatally shot while attempting to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin.

Dorit Schmiel was born in 1941 in Berlin during the Second World War, in which her father died as a soldier. She and her older brother were raised by her mother and step-father in the East Berlin district of Pankow, where she worked as a seamstress in a state-run manufacturing company. Ever since she was a child, she traveled regularly to the western part of the city to visit relatives, go shopping, watch movies, or go dancing. The sealing off of the sector border, and subsequent loss of freedom to visit the west as a painful turning point in her life. By the time she was 20, she had moved in with her fiancé, Detlef Teuchert. Together with three other friends (brothers Eberhard Brede and Dietrich Brede, and Dietrich's girlfriend, Brigitte Kießling), because of dissatisfaction with the political situation in the GDR, and because it had now become apparent that division of Berlin would be permanent, she decided early in 1962 to attempt to escape to West Berlin. The group of five decided on a place in the northern part of the city, where Dorit's cousin previously escaped.

It was past midnight on February 19, 1962, a misty and cloudy night, when the five friends approached the border to West Berlin's Reinickendorf district from the east side at Rosenthal, in Pankow. After observing the movement of the border guards, they sneaked through a cemetery known today as "Friedhof Pankow VII" to its back fence, which also comprised the inner, or hinterland, fence of the border security strip. Using wire cutters, they cut a hole in the first fence, and one after another, they crawled through the hole, and through the snow, towards the outer border fences. They had almost reached them when border guards noticed them, and began shooting at them. A bullet hit Dorit Schmiel in the abdomen, causing her to cry out; only then did the guards stop firing and approached the group. The remaining four surrendered, and obeyed the order to stand up. But Schmiel remained on the groud, bleeding profusely, and crying in pain. She was transported to the Krankenhaus der Volkspolizei (People's Police Hospital) in Mitte, where she died later that same night.

Dorit Schmiel was buried on March 2, 1962 in Section 29B of the cemetery known today as "Friedhof Pankow III", in Schönholz, Niederschönhausen., Like Friedhof Pankow VII, where the escape attempt took place, Friedhof Pankow III also on the border to Reinickendorf. Supplementary forces of the People's Police virtually sealed off the funeral, preventing the participation of many mourners from Niederschönhausen. As of 2012, her grave no longer exists.

The other fugitives were interrogated for hours that same night. They were tried a month later, and indicted for "an act that seriously endangered society" and which could have endangered peace by inciting "provocations from the class enemy." The Pankow district court sentenced them to prison terms ranging from ten months to two years.

Thirty years later, Dorit Schmiel’s friends acted as witnesses and joint plaintiffs in the trial of the three border guards (Hans-Jürgen D., Rainer R., und Horst B.) who had shot her. It was not possible to determine which guard had fired the shots that killed Dorit Schmiel and wounded Eberhard B. Because they were all under 21 at the time, they were tried in a youth criminal court in Moabit, and found guilty of joint manslaughter in coincidence with attempted manslaughter, and sentenced to 18 months in prison, which was commuted to probation.

• Christine Brecht: Dorit Schmiel, in: Die Todesopfer an der Berliner Mauer 1961–1989. Ein biographisches Handbuch.Links, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86153-517-1, p. 70–72