Ex-Stasi officer jailed over 1974 Berlin border killing

A former East German secret police officer was sentenced to 10 years in jail in a landmark ruling on Monday for shooting dead a Polish man trying to flee to the West 50 years ago.

The sentence, almost 35 years after the Berlin Wall fell, marks the first time a former Stasi officer has been convicted of a homicide committed on duty, according to historians.

The Berlin court found Martin Manfred Naumann, 80, guilty of murder for shooting Czeslaw Kukuczka in the back at close range as he sought to flee through Berlin's Friedrichstrasse border point in 1974.

The killing was witnessed by a group of West German schoolgirls on their way back from a class trip. In the trial held decades on, the women testified in court.

Judge Bernd Miczajka said the court had no doubt that Naumann was the gunman who had "mercilessly" carried out the killing at the orders of the Stasi.

Wearing a blue jacket and red turtleneck, Naumann -- a thin man with a shock of white hair -- fixed his eyes on the judge as the verdict was read out, his hands clasped in front of him.

East Germany's hated "Staatssicherheit" or Stasi police built a repressive apparatus of surveillance and intimidation, using millions of officers and informants, bugging technology and secret prisons.

After reunification in 1990, some former Stasi officers were prosecuted for crimes they committed under the communist dictatorship but a lack of evidence meant many cases went unsolved.

- 'Victory for justice' -

Initial investigations into Kukuczka's death in the 1990s led nowhere, but the case was picked up again in 2016 after researchers found documents in the Stasi archive showing Naumann had been decorated for the killing.

Poland issued a European arrest warrant for Naumann in 2021 and a year ago he was charged with murder -- crucial to the case because the statute of limitations for manslaughter would have expired.

Filip Ganczak, a Polish historian who worked on the case, said the verdict was a "victory for justice".

"There were also other people who were involved in this act," he said. While others have died, "Naumann is still alive, and it was possible to hold him accountable".

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.

On the day he died, Kukuczka, 38, 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 court documents.

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

- 'Outrageous' -

Stasi officials handed Kukuczka an exit visa and led him to the crossing, dubbed the "Palace of Tears" for its frequent sad farewells, where Naumann was waiting behind a screen.

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.

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

After the Berlin Wall fell, Stasi officers frantically shredded files and, when the machines broke down under the strain, tore documents up by hand to pulp or burn the scraps.

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

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

The UOKG group for victims of the communist dictatorship welcomed the verdict but said it was "outrageous" that Germany only picked up the case under pressure from Polish authorities.

Former Stasi employees can continue to enjoy their retirement "and sleep peacefully," said Dieter Dombrowski, chairman of the group.