Victims of the Wall

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Klaus-Jürgen Kluge

1948–1969

Klaus-Jürgen Kluge, a 21-year-old pattern maker from Schönow near Bernau, was shot dead on 13 September 1969 as he tried to climb the Wall near the Helmut-Just Bridge, south of the Bornholmer Strasse crossing.

Klaus-Jürgen Kluge was born on 25 July 1948 in Schönow near Bernau. He went to the local secondary school, graduated after the tenth grade, and in spring 1969 completed an apprenticeship as a pattern maker.

As he grew older he became increasingly critical of East Germany. A Stasi informant reported that he had repeatedly spoken negatively about supply shortages and compared everything with what he saw as the good development in West Germany. A Stasi assessment noted that he belonged to no party or organisation, called his attitude to the state negative and said that his long hair and wide bell-bottom trousers made him look decadent. In 1969, the year an acquaintance or friend of his escaped to the West, he was due to begin his service in the NVA, the East German army he detested, in November. By then, at the latest, he seems to have concluded that fleeing was his only way out.

On the afternoon of 13 September 1969 he left his parents' home, saying he was going to a dance. Instead he travelled to East Berlin, and at about 8.40 p.m. he entered the border area in the former S-Bahn triangle south of the Bornholmer Strasse crossing. Near the Helmut-Just Bridge he got past the first barriers unseen, but set off an alarm on the signal fence.

A soldier came down from the watchtower deliberately slowly; he was afraid of having to shoot and hoped an animal had tripped the alarm, as had often happened before. At the foot of the tower he fired a flare that dazzled him. The guard leader, still in the tower, saw the young man at the Wall, and when the soldier below did not respond to his order to arrest him, he rushed down himself. Running towards the Wall, without a warning call or warning shot, he fired two aimed bursts from the hip at a distance of about 60 metres as Klaus-Jürgen Kluge already lay with his upper body on the top of the Wall. Hit by two bullets in the chest and foot, he fell and died of his injuries within minutes.

His body was soon taken to the watchtower and from there to the People's Police Hospital in Mitte; to the Stasi's satisfaction, West Berlin police and French military police arrived to light up and photograph the scene only after it had been removed. The next day the regiment commander decorated and rewarded the guards involved. His parents were told of his death only after he had been cremated, and the Stasi obliged them to tell relatives and acquaintances that he had died in an accident in Berlin. His urn was buried in Schönow cemetery on 8 October 1969 under Stasi surveillance. In 1997 the Berlin Regional Court gave the man who fired a suspended youth sentence of one year and four months; the soldier under his command was acquitted. Two years later the former regiment commander and chief of staff were tried for aiding and abetting manslaughter and sentenced to one year and three months and one year in prison respectively.

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. Udo Baron, “Klaus-Jürgen Kluge”, 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

Cite this page

“Klaus-Jürgen Kluge”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/kluge-klaus-juergen/

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.