新湖畔网 （随信APP) | 前东德秘密警察面临对1974年柏林边境杀人案的裁决

柏林的弗里德里希大街，1988年的照片显示了这里被称为“泪之宫”的原因——版权AFP/法国司法法律系统杂志记者让-菲利普·拉库尔

费姆克·科尔伯恩

一名前东德秘密警察面临周一的谋杀审判，被指控50年前射杀了试图逃往西方的波兰人。

如果80岁的前斯塔西官员马丁·诺曼被判有罪，这将是类似案件的首次定罪，距离柏林墙倒塌将近35年。

诺曼被指控在1974年在柏林的弗里德里希大街边境口射杀了38岁的切斯瓦夫·库库茨卡，当时他试图逃跑。

三名西德女学生从一次学校旅行中返回，目睹了这起谋杀案，这一过境点被称为“泪之宫”，因为经常有悲伤的离别。

现在已成年，她们被传唤到柏林出庭作证。

检察官要求监禁诺曼12年，将枪击称为“阴险的谋杀案”。

诺曼通过辩护律师否认了指控，但拒绝回应法庭。

辩护方认为没有证据证明诺曼是射手，或者这起谋杀案构成了谋杀而非过失杀人，后者的诉讼时效已过。

总共，至少有140人在1961年至1989年尝试越过柏林墙时遇害，还有数百人在尝试其他途径逃离东德时死亡。

柏林斯塔西档案馆负责人丹妮拉·门克尔告诉法新社，如果被判有罪，诺曼将成为第一位被判犯有谋杀罪的前斯塔西官员。

这对于德国为共产主义专政不公平行为进行弥补具有“重大象征意义”，门克尔表示。

如果诺曼被判无罪，“这可能标志着对前东德犯罪的法律评估的结束”，她说。

– 炸弹威胁 –

在他去世的那天，库库茨卡曾前往东柏林的波兰大使馆，威胁要引爆一个假炸弹，除非他被允许通往西方，根据最近的历史研究。

据信大使馆工作人员批准了库库茨卡的请求，同时告诉东德当局有关这一威胁。

据检察官称，斯塔西官员发放了一张出境签证并把库库茨卡带到了边境口，诺曼藏身在屏风后准备等待。

档案文件表明，秘密警察受命“使波兰人无法继续活动”，这是斯塔西文件中常见的用语，指政治对手的清除。

1990年代对库库茨卡死亡的初步调查一事不了了之，但在波兰于2021年发布了对诺曼的欧洲引渡令后，这个案件再次被提起。

去年10月，他被指控犯有谋杀罪。

长达数十年的延迟说明了德国在向前共产主义政府的受害者提供司法公正方面所面临的挑战。

根据官方政府记录，1990年代总共有251人因为斯塔西的罪行受到指控。

然而，三分之二的刑事诉讼要么以无罪结案，要么没有定罪，只有87名被告获刑，大多数被判处轻刑。

Berlin's Friedrichstrasse, shown here in 1988, was dubbed the 'Palace of Tears' for its frequent sad farewells - Copyright AFP/File Jean-Philippe LACOUR

Femke COLBORNE

A former East German secret police officer faces a verdict Monday in a murder trial, accused of shooting dead a Polish man trying to flee to the West 50 years ago.

If ex-Stasi officer Martin Naumann, 80, is found guilty, it would be the first conviction of its kind, almost 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Naumann is accused of killing Czeslaw Kukuczka, 38, by shooting him in the back at close range as he sought to flee through Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse border point in 1974.

Three West German schoolgirls returning from a class trip witnessed the killing at the crossing, dubbed the “Palace of Tears” for its frequent sad farewells.

Now adults, they were called to testify during Naumann’s trial in Berlin.

Prosecutors have called for Naumann to be jailed for 12 years, branding the shooting “an insidious case of murder”.

Naumann has denied the charges through his defence lawyers but declined to address the court.

The defence has argued there was no proof Naumann was the shooter — or that the killing constituted murder rather than manslaughter, on which the statute of limitations would have expired.

In all, at least 140 people were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989, and hundreds more died while trying to flee East Germany by other means.

If convicted, Naumann would be the first former Stasi officer to be found guilty of murder, Daniela Muenkel, the head of the Stasi archives in Berlin, told AFP.

This would have “great symbolic significance” in Germany’s efforts to atone for the injustices of the communist dictatorship, Muenkel said.

If Naumann is acquitted, she said, “this would probably mark the end of the legal reappraisal” of crimes committed in the former East Germany.

– Bomb threat –

On the day he died, Kukuczka had gone to the Polish embassy in East Berlin and threatened to detonate a dummy bomb unless he was granted passage to the West, according to recent historical research.

Embassy staff are believed to have approved Kukuczka’s request while alerting East German authorities to the threat.

Stasi officials handed Kukuczka an exit visa and led him to the crossing where Naumann was waiting, concealed behind a screen, according to prosecutors.

Archival documents suggest the secret police were under orders to “render harmless” the Pole, a common euphemism found in Stasi documents for the liquidation of political opponents.

Initial investigations into Kukuczka’s death in the 1990s led nowhere, but the case was picked up again after Poland issued a European arrest warrant for Naumann in 2021.

He was then charged with murder in October last year.

The decades-long delay illustrates the challenges Germany has faced in delivering justice to victims of the former communist government.

During the 1990s, a total of 251 people were charged with crimes committed on behalf of the Stasi, according to official government records.

However, two-thirds of the criminal proceedings ended either with an acquittal or without a verdict and only 87 defendants were convicted, with most receiving mild sentences.