On February 5, 1989, 20-year-old East German waiter Chris Gueffroy decided to take a chance at a new life in the West. Having heard that the East German border guards’ shoot-to-kill order had been repealed, Gueffroy and a friend, Christian Gaudian, chose to scale the Berlin Wall near a remote canal on the edge of the divided city.
Their information was wrong. When the pair passed the first 3.5-meter wall that night, they tripped an alarm signal, bathing them in white light. They were then hit by a hail of bullets as they tried to climb the last 2.9-meter metal barrier that stood between them and freedom.
Gueffroy died from a shot to the heart; Gaudian was seriously injured and taken into custody.
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