Death on the German Border

The killing happened nearly 27 years ago, at a time when two Germanys existed and their border was a death trap for those trying to flee from the communist east to the democratic west.

But the killing has still not been forgotten by the victim's family or the German justice system. And on Tuesday, a Berlin court began its latest effort to determine how and why Michael Gartenschläger was shot to death by East German border guards after he dismantled one of the communist country's most secret border weapons -- self-firing guns whose existence East German leaders had repeatedly denied.

Helmut Heckel and Wolfgang Singer (photo, left to right), two former officers of the East German secret police, the Stasi, are on trial. They are facing manslaughter charges because prosecutors maintain they helped devise the plan that led to Gartenschläger's death in 1976. Both men denied the charges on Tuesday.

"The manslaughter charge is wrong," Heckel said, a 71-year-old former Stasi colonel.

"I am not the spritual father of the plan," said Singer, a 60-year-old former Stasi lieutenant colonel.

Coming to terms with violent past

The two men are being tried as the German justice system continues to wrestle with the bloody past of the inner German border. In all, 916 people are thought to have been killed or died in their attempts to cross the border. The victims included people trying to escape across the mine-covered frontier, people trying to get around the concrete wall in Berlin and the 32-year-old Gartenschläger, a West German resident who was out to smear East Germany's international image.

Trials stemming from the deaths have led to the conviction of former East German leader Egon Krenz, among others. But that has not been the case with Gartenschläger's death. Three former East German border guards were acquitted of murder charges in 2000 because of conflicting testimony about the course of the events that occurred early on May 1, 1976.

Gartenschläger was no friend of East Germany, the country that built the Berlin Wall, shut the then 17-year-old off from his favorite record shops in the west and eventually sentenced him to a life term in prison for being part of a "counterrevolutionary terror group" that wrote graffiti and burned down a barn. After 10 years in prison, the West German government bought his freedom in 1971 as part of a program to help political prisoners in East Germany.

Organizing escapes from the East

Gartenschläger used his freedom to nettle the government that had robbed him of it in the first place. His primary mission was to help other people escape, and he even provided people with passports with which they could escape through Libya, according to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

In 1975, Gartenschläger learned about the weapon that would eventually cost him his life -- the SM 70 self-firing gun. The former East German decided he would provide West German officials with one. "If they need the thing and don't have it, you'll get the thing for them," he was quoted as saying.

And that is what he did, handing it over to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. He went back a short time later and dismantled another. This caused the Stasi to launch its own operation to stop him. Using its long reach deep into West Germany, the Stasi learned that Gartenschläger planned a third visit to the border on the evening of April 30, 1976, and its officers decided to put an end to his activities.

Armed with a pistol, Gartenschläger headed to the border in search of his third SM 70. What happened after that is uncertain. During the first trial, witnesses testified that Gartenschläger fired first and the East Germans fired back. But no gunpowder was found on Gartenschläger's hand. After hearing the testimony, the judge said that everything was possible but that "nothing can be proven." And he acquitted the three defendants.