Victims of the Wall

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Marienetta Jirkowsky

1962–1980

Marienetta Jirkowsky, an 18-year-old textile worker from Spreenhagen known to friends as "Micki", was shot on 22 November 1980 at Florastrasse in Hohen Neuendorf as she climbed the Wall behind her fiancé and a friend, and died in hospital that morning.

Black-and-white photograph of a smiling young woman with short dark hair, set in a rusted steel niche engraved with her name and dates
Portrait of Marienetta Jirkowsky in the Window of Remembrance at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße Photo: Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Marienetta Jirkowsky was born on 25 August 1962 in Bad Saarow and grew up in Spreenhagen in Brandenburg, the only child of her parents. She trained as a skilled textile worker at a tyre combine in Fürstenwalde. Her friends called her "Micki"; her friend Falko V. later described her as small, free-spirited and fun-loving, and said that they had only wanted to live in peace, without constant prohibitions.

Falko V. had long thought of escaping. In spring 1980 he and Marienetta met Peter W., who had repeatedly applied to leave East Germany. Marienetta loved him; her friends could not understand why she stayed with him, given how he treated her, and she could not understand why they did not accept her love. When she turned 18 the two became engaged and planned to move in together that autumn. Her parents opposed the relationship and obtained a police order forbidding him to contact her. From then on the three waited for a chance to leave, and planned their escape for the night from 22 November 1980 into the following morning. Peter W. built a ladder that could be taken apart.

On 21 November they looked for a crossing point in East Berlin, judged the spot they had looked at unsuitable and took the S-Bahn to Hohen Neuendorf, where Peter W. knew the border. They arrived at about half past midnight, got a first look over the inner wall, and, contrary to their original plan, decided to go that same night. Unknown to them, a Stasi informant among their friends had betrayed the plan, and the two men narrowly escaped an arrest planned for early that morning. For three hours they watched the border and encouraged one another.

At about 3.30 a.m. they climbed the inner wall. The two men crossed the signal fence without setting off the alarm, but when Marienetta followed, it went off. Both men reached the top of the outer wall as guards opened fire from a watchtower. Falko V. jumped down on the western side. Peter W. lay flat on the wall and reached down for Marienetta, who, standing on the top rung, was too short to grasp the top. Her hands had already reached the top of the Wall when a bullet struck her and she fell from the ladder. She was taken to hospital in Hennigsdorf for emergency surgery, and died there at 11.30 a.m. from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

That same day the French city commander, on behalf of all the Allied commanders, protested against the shooting. The Stasi tried to stop any information about her death from getting out and planned to discredit the two men in the West; an informant even removed the cross the two men put up opposite the crossing point in early February 1981. Falko V. campaigned publicly for her memory, filing a criminal complaint for murder against the East German defence minister and chaining himself to the Soviet embassy gate in Madrid. Her father was at first told only that she had been arrested at the border; he learned two days later that she had been shot. No death notice was allowed, and on 14 December 1980 her urn was buried in Spreenhagen before her close family, with the town almost sealed off by the Stasi. Fifteen years later the youth chamber of the Neuruppin Regional Court convicted one of the guards who had fired of manslaughter in a less serious case and gave him a youth sentence of one year and three months, suspended on probation.

Her parents never recovered from losing their only child. In 2003 the memorial cross put up for her in the West became part of the "White Crosses" memorial on the banks of the Spree, and in late 2006 a memorial column was erected on Florastrasse near where she tried to cross. She is also commemorated at the German Forest Youth Tower, a former border troops command post in Bergfelde, at the Berlin Wall Memorial and in the Chapel of Reconciliation. When the Hohen Neuendorf council decided in 2009 to name a square after her without consulting her family, they objected; her aunt, speaking for the family, said it was better to let the dead rest in peace, and that this had also been her parents' last wish.

Tall orange column and a grey portrait post beside a path, with a graffiti-covered concrete Wall segment behind them
Memorial stele for Marienetta Jirkowsky in Hohen Neuendorf in 2018, with a newly added Berlin Wall segment Photo: Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Snowy scene with a white cross lettered with her name, "18 Jahre" and a date, hung on a fence in front of the Wall, with another cross to the left
White memorial cross for Marienetta Jirkowsky at the Berlin Wall near the Reichstag, photographed in December 1985 (the cross spells her name "Jirkowski") Photo: Dilbert3b, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dark granite headstone with family names and a line of remembrance, in a grave planted with evergreens and white flowers
Family grave of Marienetta Jirkowsky at the cemetery in Spreenhagen Photo: Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Sources

This profile is a summary written for this site. Every fact in it is taken from source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references.

  1. Martin Ahrends/Udo Baron, “Marienetta Jirkowsky”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. Basis for every fact in this profile, including the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  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. The printed handbook from which the online biography is taken.
  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. PDF. Used to cross-check names and dates.
  5. 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.

Further reading

Image credits

  • Portrait of Marienetta Jirkowsky in the Window of Remembrance at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Memorial stele for Marienetta Jirkowsky in Hohen Neuendorf in 2018, with a newly added Berlin Wall segment. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • White memorial cross for Marienetta Jirkowsky at the Berlin Wall near the Reichstag, photographed in December 1985 (the cross spells her name "Jirkowski"). Dilbert3b, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Family grave of Marienetta Jirkowsky at the cemetery in Spreenhagen. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Marienetta Jirkowsky”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/jirkowsky-marienetta/

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.