Victims of the Wall

All 140 people

Chris Gueffroy

1968–1989

Chris Gueffroy, a 20-year-old waiter from Berlin who had once trained as a gymnast, was shot dead on 5 February 1989 at the Britzer Zweigkanal in Treptow while trying to escape to West Berlin; he was the last person killed by gunfire at the Berlin Wall.

Black-and-white photograph of a young man with thick dark hair, set in a rusted steel niche engraved with his name and dates
Portrait of Chris Gueffroy in the Window of Remembrance at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße Photo: Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Chris Gueffroy was born on 21 June 1968 in Pasewalk and moved to Berlin with his mother at the age of five. In the third grade his talent for gymnastics was spotted, and in 1978 he was sent to the children's and youth sports school of SC Dynamo Berlin, where he hoped for a successful career. But he increasingly felt hemmed in by the state's regimented routine. When he refused to train as an army officer after school, he was not allowed to take the Abitur, the school-leaving examination that qualifies for university, and with that his hopes of a future as an actor or a pilot were gone. He started an apprenticeship at the Schönefeld airport restaurant in September 1985 and afterwards worked as a waiter in several restaurants.

The work paid well, but he often told his mother how much the corruption in the trade disgusted him. His friend Christian G. felt the same. At twenty, Chris found it harder and harder to accept that he would never be free to choose where to live. When he learned early in 1989 that he was to be called up to the army in May, the two friends decided in mid-January to leave East Germany. Friends had told them the order to shoot at the border had been suspended, and they planned their escape for 5 February, believing a state visit by the Swedish prime minister would make shooting unlikely. Both assumptions were wrong: the order was still in force, and, according to the research project, the prime minister had already left East Berlin.

On the evening of 5 February 1989 the two left their shared flat, telling family and friends they were going to Prague. At about 10.30 p.m., according to the research project, they reached a garden colony in Treptow and watched the border from a tool shed for over an hour; the sources name the colony differently. At around 11.30 p.m. they helped each other over the inner wall in front of the Britzer Zweigkanal, which marked the border with Neukölln. Crawling through the signal fence, they set off the alarm. As they ran towards the last metal fence, guards opened fire from two sides. While the two were trying to help each other over, a soldier first shot at Chris's feet and then aimed higher. Chris was hit in the heart and died within minutes.

Christian G. was wounded, arrested and sentenced in May 1989 to three years in prison. Chris's mother had heard the shots that night. Two days later she learned from a friend of his that he had planned to escape; that evening the Stasi took her in for questioning, and she was told her son was dead. His brother managed to place a death notice in the "Berliner Zeitung", which appeared on 21 February 1989. On 23 February well over 100 people attended his funeral at the Baumschulenweg Cemetery under Stasi observation, and a memorial cross was put up that day on the West Berlin side.

After the Wall fell, his mother, Karin Gueffroy, sought the truth about her son's death and on 12 January 1990 filed a criminal complaint against persons unknown. In 1991 four former guards were charged, beginning the first of many such trials. On 20 January 1992 the guard who fired the fatal shot was convicted of manslaughter and given three and a half years; a second guard received a suspended sentence of two years for attempted manslaughter, and the two post leaders were acquitted. On 25 March 1993 the Federal Court of Justice upheld the shooter's conviction but set aside his sentence, holding that he stood at the very bottom of the military hierarchy and was in a sense also a victim of the border regime; it acquitted the second guard and ordered a retrial of one post leader. In March 1994 the Berlin Regional Court gave the shooter two years, this time suspended on probation, and acquitted the post leader. His death was later also among the counts on which three members of the SED Politburo were convicted of manslaughter, a verdict the Federal Court of Justice upheld in 1999. In 2004, in the last of these trials, two more former Politburo members were convicted of aiding and abetting the murder of three escapers, among them Chris Gueffroy, according to press reports.

The protests that followed his death added to pressure on the East German leadership, and on 3 April 1989 Erich Honecker instructed that the order to shoot, whose existence had always been officially denied, should no longer be applied. No one else was killed by gunfire at the Berlin Wall after the shooting of Chris Gueffroy and Christian G. In 2003, for what would have been his 35th birthday, a memorial column was put up at the Britzer Zweigkanal, and on 13 August 2010 Britzer Allee was renamed Chris-Gueffroy-Allee.

Tall rust-brown steel stele with an engraved inscription on a round paved base with yellow flowers, beside a canal
Memorial stele for Chris Gueffroy on the Britzer Verbindungskanal in Berlin-Baumschulenweg, erected in 2003 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
White cross on a mesh fence covered in flowers, hand-lettered with his name, a date, his age and "Opfer der Honecker Diktatur", with the graffiti-covered Wall behind
White cross for Chris Gueffroy at the Berlin Wall, photographed on 28 December 1989; the hand-lettered cross misspells his name as "Geoffroy" and gives 6.2.89, but he died on 5 February 1989 Photo: Aad van der Drift, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Grey stone slab reading "Chris Gueffroy 1968–1989" surrounded by flowers, candles and pebbles
Grave of Chris Gueffroy at the cemetery on Kiefholzstraße in Berlin-Baumschulenweg Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Read more

Also died on the sector border between Berlin-Neukölln and Berlin-Treptow

Sources

This profile is a summary written for this site from the biography in source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references. Facts taken from other sources are listed below with what they support.

  1. Udo Baron/Hans-Hermann Hertle, “Chris Gueffroy”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. The biography from which this profile was written, and the source of the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  3. Chris Gueffroy, handwritten curriculum vitae, 1988, in Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 29 September 2026. Read online. Source for: that he was sent in 1978 to the children’s and youth sports school of SC Dynamo.
  4. Bundesgerichtshof, judgment of 25 March 1993, 5 StR 418/92 (BGHSt 39, 168). Accessed 29 September 2026. Read online. Source for: the appeal ruling of 1993.
  5. Bundesgerichtshof, judgment of 8 November 1999, 5 StR 632/98 (the Politburo case), text on HRR-Strafrecht. Accessed 27 September 2026. Read online. Source for: that his death was among the counts on which three Politburo members were convicted, upheld in 1999.
  6. “Bewährung für SED-Politiker im letzten Mauer-Prozess”, Der Tagesspiegel, 7 August 2004. Accessed 29 September 2026. Read online. Source for: the press report of the 2004 convictions of two more former Politburo members.
  7. Urteil des Landgerichts Berlin vom 14. März 1994 (excerpt), Chronik der Mauer Read online. Source for: the criminal proceedings after the death.
  8. Roman Grafe, "Die Prozesse wegen der Tötung des Mauerflüchtlings Chris Gueffroy", Deutschland Archiv 6/2004 PDF. Source for: the criminal proceedings after the death.
  9. 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. The printed handbook from which the online biography is taken.
  10. 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. PDF. Used to cross-check names and dates.
  11. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: Findings of a Research Project”, August 2017. PDF. Source of the classification into escapees, people with no intent to escape, and border soldiers.

Corrections

This profile was corrected on 24 and 28 September and 3 October 2026. Each round of corrections is described in the corrections log:

  • : Court outcomes checked against the German originals
    • Corrected “charges” to a criminal complaint: in January 1990 his mother filed a criminal complaint against persons unknown (Strafanzeige gegen Unbekannt).
    • Corrected the 1991 step: four former guards were charged that year, which began the first of many such trials; they did not “go on trial” in 1991.
    • Corrected the retrial sentence: two years, this time suspended on probation, not “commuted to probation”.
  • : All profiles and articles cross-checked against the German originals
    • Corrected the appeal: the Federal Court of Justice's ruling is no longer dated 1994; March 1994 is the date of the retrial verdict of the Berlin Regional Court, to which the case had been referred back.
    • Corrected the name of his school: the children's and youth sports school of FC Dynamo Berlin, not “SC Dynamo”.
    • Corrected the timing: he learned early in 1989 that he was to be called up, and the two friends decided in mid-January to leave East Germany; the text had said he learned of the call-up in mid-January.
    • Corrected what the friends had heard: that the order to shoot had been suspended (German: ausgesetzt), not “lifted”.
  • : Every profile checked against all the sources
    • Corrected the appeal: in 1993 the Federal Court of Justice upheld the shooter's manslaughter conviction and set aside only his sentence; added the outcome for the other three guards and the later convictions of SED Politburo members for his death (1999 and 2004).

Further reading

Image credits

  • Portrait of Chris Gueffroy in the Window of Remembrance at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Memorial stele for Chris Gueffroy on the Britzer Verbindungskanal in Berlin-Baumschulenweg, erected in 2003. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • White cross for Chris Gueffroy at the Berlin Wall, photographed on 28 December 1989; the hand-lettered cross misspells his name as "Geoffroy" and gives 6.2.89, but he died on 5 February 1989. Aad van der Drift, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Grave of Chris Gueffroy at the cemetery on Kiefholzstraße in Berlin-Baumschulenweg. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Chris Gueffroy”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/gueffroy-chris/

Map

The pin position is based on the place of death described in source 1. Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors; course of the Wall in 1989 from Geoportal Berlin (dl-de/zero-2.0). Accessed 23 September 2026.