Victims of the Wall

All 140 people

Herbert Kiebler

1952–1975

Herbert Kiebler, a 23-year-old metal worker from Mahlow, was shot dead by border guards near Highway 96 on 27 June 1975; the Stasi disguised his death as a suicide far from the border.

Tall orange column bearing his name standing in a wood, next to a slim grey post with a portrait photograph and text panel
Memorial column for Herbert Kiebler on the Berlin Wall Trail (Mauerweg) in Blankenfelde-Mahlow Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Herbert Kiebler was born in Mahlow, on the southern edge of Berlin, on 24 March 1952. His father died in 1965. Herbert lived with his mother and his younger sister; his three older siblings had already left home. From February 1975 he worked as a presser at a metal plant in Berlin that produced semi-finished goods.

On the warm evening of 26 June 1975, the 23-year-old was at a tavern in Mahlow with his group of friends when a fight broke out, probably over card-sharping and gambling debts. He came off worst. He arrived home the worse for drink at around 10 p.m., hurt in body and spirit; his sister, then 15, later told the People's Police that he had wept with shame and spoken of suicide. Half an hour later he left, leaving a farewell note in which he told his mother they would meet again either in prison or in West Germany, and that if he should die he wished her every happiness. He told his little sister he wanted to go over to the other side; she tried to stop him and ran after him but lost sight of him.

He spent the night on the move, and his brother later learned that he had taken a bus to Drewitz and then come back to Mahlow. At around 12.30 a.m. he got past the signal fence near what was then Highway 96, not knowing that he had triggered an alarm. Two border guards drove out to search, found the tracks where he had crawled, and took up position. As he was about to climb out of the anti-vehicle trench, they spotted him and opened fire, although, as they later admitted, they could easily have arrested him: the Wall still ahead of him could not be climbed without equipment. The court that tried the case in 2001 found that the guard who fired had used a Kalashnikov set to continuous fire, and that although Herbert Kiebler carried a knife in a sheath on his belt, he had made no threatening move towards the guards but was trying to get out of the trench towards the Wall. Hit by a bullet in the chest and upper arm, he collapsed and bled to death at the scene.

It was only weeks before the final act of the CSCE was due to be signed in Helsinki, and the party leadership wanted no reports of deaths at the Wall. Because nobody seemed to have noticed the escape attempt, the Stasi staged his death as a suicide and moved the scene to woodland far from the border. Foresters, People's Police officers, registrars, pathologists and state attorneys were all drawn into the deception.

His mother, alarmed by the farewell letter, reported him missing on the morning of 27 June. On 3 July the family was told that a forester had found his body in woodland in Potsdam-West and that he had taken his own life with a knife. His older brother could not understand why Herbert would have travelled more than 40 kilometres in the middle of the night to do so; when he asked, the Potsdam state attorney repeated the official story but refused to show any photographs of the body. The family did not believe the official version. They feared he might have fallen victim to the men who had beaten him that evening, and, having heard rumours of shooting at the border on the night he disappeared, they did not rule out an escape attempt either. He was buried in Mahlow cemetery on 11 July 1975, with the mourners watched by the Stasi. Denied a last look at him, his relatives secretly entered the chapel at night, opened the coffin and saw the bullet wounds.

His mother kept asking the police for the truth. Her daughter later said that the lies had destroyed her; she received psychiatric treatment and died, embittered, in 1993. Only in the 1990s, when prosecutors investigated and the family could read the Stasi files, did the truth emerge. The guard who fired the fatal shot had been decorated, and his company commander, who had given the guards their orders, had also been honoured. In May 2001, a quarter of a century later, the Potsdam Regional Court convicted them of manslaughter and of aiding and abetting manslaughter respectively, and gave them sentences of 24 and 15 months, suspended on probation. His sister, a witness at the trial, sensed no remorse. Since 2012 a memorial column has stood near the place where he died, where for some years the district of Teltow-Fläming, the Berlin borough of Tempelhof-Schöneberg and the municipality of Blankenfelde-Mahlow have remembered him on anniversaries.

Dark panel topped by a black-and-white portrait of a young man in a roll-neck sweater, followed by German and English text
Information panel with a portrait of Herbert Kiebler at his memorial on the Mauerweg in Blankenfelde-Mahlow Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panel with a black-and-white aerial photograph marked with two symbols, above German and English text
Panel on the memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking Herbert Kiebler's escape route and place of death Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Also died on the outer ring between Berlin-Tempelhof and Mahlow

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. Martin Ahrends/Udo Baron/Hans-Hermann Hertle, “Herbert Kiebler”, 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. Judgment of the Potsdam Regional Court (Landgericht Potsdam), 22 May 2001, Az. 21 Ks 20/00, excerpts published in Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 3 October 2026. Source for: that an arrest was possible, the continuous fire, and that he made no threatening move with his knife.
  4. Urteil des Landgerichts Potsdam vom 22. Mai 2001, Az. 21 Ks 20/00 (excerpts published on Chronik der Mauer, document page 171635) Source for: the criminal proceedings after the death.
  5. 'Verhandlung gegen DDR-Grenzer: Wegen Totschlags vor Gericht', Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten, 19 April 2001 Read online. Source for: the criminal proceedings after the death.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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:

Further reading

Image credits

  • Memorial column for Herbert Kiebler on the Berlin Wall Trail (Mauerweg) in Blankenfelde-Mahlow. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Information panel with a portrait of Herbert Kiebler at his memorial on the Mauerweg in Blankenfelde-Mahlow. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Panel on the memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking Herbert Kiebler's escape route and place of death. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Herbert Kiebler”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/kiebler-herbert/

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.