# Friedhelm Ehrlich (1950–1970)

> Friedhelm Ehrlich, a 20-year-old soldier from Thuringia near the end of his service, entered the border grounds in Glienicke/Nordbahn after drinking on 2 August 1970. After he had been arrested, a guard shot him in the leg, and he bled to death.

- Born: 11 July 1950
- Died: 2 August 1970
- Age at death: 20
- Cause of death: Shot
- Circumstances: Killed with no intention to escape
- Place and circumstances as recorded: Near Leipziger Strasse/Staerkstrasse; On the outer ring between Glienicke/Nordbahn (Oranienburg district) and Berlin-Reinickendorf
- Map position (approximate): 52.63752, 13.30723
- Area: outer ring between West Berlin and the GDR
- Web page: https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/ehrlich-friedhelm/

## Story

Friedhelm Ehrlich was born on 11 July 1950 in Nägelstedt in Thuringia and grew up as an only child with his parents in Gräfentonna. He trained as a machine fitter and was called up to the National People's Army in May 1969. He was close to his parents and wrote to them often; a letter from him arrived the day after he died. They later told the Berlin public prosecutor's office that he did not much like being a soldier, but that nothing, not even that last letter, suggested he meant to flee.

In early August 1970 he was serving his last weeks with the border company at Glienicke/Nordbahn. According to a Stasi report written after his death, his superiors rated his work as satisfactory, though there had allegedly been shortcomings in his military discipline, and his ideological unsteadiness was put down to western books, enthusiasm for beat groups and western radio stations.

On the warm afternoon of 2 August 1970 his leave was delayed because he was ordered to clean the barracks out of turn for what was described as a minor lapse of discipline. Angry about this, he then met others from his unit at a bar, and during the evening he went round the village's bars with the room-mate who had had to clean alongside him. On the way back he suddenly ran off; his friend assumed he was hurrying back to the barracks.

At around 10:15 p.m. he entered the border grounds, but not in the manner of an escapee: having been drinking, he broke slats from the inner fence and whistled loudly as he made his way as far as the patrol road. When a guard heard him and called on him to stop, he did so at the second call and was arrested, led away from the border and made to lie face down on the unlit street. Two other guards took over. According to the Stasi, he suddenly raised himself up, shouted a dare to shoot, threatening that otherwise he would shoot, and reached towards a back pocket; one of the two, a lance corporal, concluding that he was armed and about to use the weapon against him, fired a single shot at very close range that struck his thigh and the main artery of his left leg.

He was unarmed, as the other guard, a non-commissioned officer, found when he checked him; the NCO took his papers but apparently gave no first aid, and the ambulance came 20 minutes later. He died shortly afterwards at the People's Police Hospital, having bled to death. The Stasi's account leaves questions open: how the lance corporal could see his movements in the dark, whether he should not have known that a soldier on leave could not possibly be carrying a weapon, why he was given no first aid, when the heavy bleeding from which he died could probably have been stopped on the spot, and why, if he had wanted to flee, he had not done so while on duty at the border. Family and friends ruled out an escape attempt, if only because he had less than three months of service left, and suspected he had wanted to provoke the guards or might simply have lost his way; the barracks lay only a little over 100 metres from the border.

On 3 August 1970 a military prosecutor informed his parents of his death. Unusually, their home was not searched and they were not questioned, which puzzled them, and in the years that followed they were told only that the case was closed. His body was brought to Gräfentonna on 6 August, and shortly before the funeral they were allowed to see him in the cemetery mortuary, prepared so that no injuries were visible. At the end of 1990 his parents filed a criminal complaint with the Berlin public prosecutor's office; the investigation that followed was discontinued in mid-June 1994, the prosecutors accepting that the former lance corporal who fired the shot, also a Stasi informant, had mistakenly believed he was acting in self-defence.

## Sources

1. Martin Ahrends/Udo Baron, “Friedhelm Ehrlich”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/victims/180564/ehrlich-friedhelm
2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/todesopfer/171356/ehrlich-friedhelm
3. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke (eds.), The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook. Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, Berlin 2011.
4. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “140 Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989” (list), Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, August 2017. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/2017_08_08_140%20Victims_at_the_Wall_List_Internet_engl_FINAL.pdf
5. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: Findings of a Research Project”, August 2017. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/2017_08_08_Hertle_Nooke_140_Victims_Berlin_Wall_FINAL_0.pdf

This profile is a summary written for this site; every fact in it is taken from source 1.

Cite as: “Friedhelm Ehrlich”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/ehrlich-friedhelm/