Victims of the Wall

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Herbert Mende

1939–1968

Herbert Mende, a 23-year-old floor layer and bricklayer from Potsdam, was shot near the Glienicke Bridge on 8 July 1962 while running for a bus away from the border; he died of his injuries on 10 March 1968.

Panel with a large black-and-white photograph of a man in a white shirt and tie, above German and English text headed "Herbert Mende"
Memorial panel for Herbert Mende at Berliner Straße 86 in Potsdam, near the Glienicke Bridge, with his portrait (around 1950, photo: private ownership) and biography, photographed in 2020 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Herbert Mende was born on 9 February 1939 to Anastasia and Franz Mende, and grew up with two older sisters in Steinaugrund in Silesia, today Ligota Tulowicka in Poland. In 1945 his mother escaped with the children to Zieran in the Altmark; his father, once freed from British captivity, followed them there. In 1957 the family, who had also taken in a foster child, moved to Potsdam. After an apprenticeship with the state firm 'Ausbau Potsdam', Herbert worked in the city as a floor layer and bricklayer.

On the first Saturday of July 1962 he went dancing at the 'John Schehr' youth club on the eastern edge of Potsdam, not far from the heavily guarded Glienicke Bridge. Just after midnight he left to catch the last bus home. According to a customs officer at the barrier, the young man, who had been drinking, asked him with some irony where the bus to Potsdam left from, and after getting directions walked towards the stop, away from the border.

A police patrol then stopped him to check his papers. He had left his ID at home and could only show his military service registration card, so the officers took him to a guardhouse at the bridge barrier to wait to be collected, which amounted to a preliminary arrest, though he apparently did not realise it. When his bus arrived and turned round, he asked whether they still needed him; receiving no reply, he ran for it. He later told his father that a policeman came out and shouted to two nearby border guards to shoot. After a warning shot, one guard fired twice from 30 metres. From his hospital bed he later wrote that he had seen the bus ahead of him, heard shots and collapsed.

He was taken to the district hospital in Potsdam, where a senior doctor's firm objection kept him from being moved to the army hospital in Drewitz. The wounds to his pelvis and abdomen left him an invalid, in severe pain for months. The People's Police and the border police admitted to his parents that there had been an 'accident', and his father was even allowed to see the files; from them, he later told the police, he learned that his son should never have been taken into the restricted zone at all. An internal Interior Ministry report criticised the tactically unsound conduct and poor coordination of the units involved and concluded that the aimed shot would not have been necessary had the police acted decisively to arrest him. But the military prosecutor denied that the marksman was at fault, opened no investigation and would not name him. The family fought for years over his accident insurance until a settlement in June 1966.

After two continuous years in hospital he was sent home in the summer of 1964 in need of constant care, and his mother gave up work to care for him. After long suffering, Herbert Mende died on 10 March 1968 at St. Josef's Hospital in Potsdam, a month after his 29th birthday.

After 1990 his father Franz Mende had an investigation opened against the man who shot his son. The guard can hardly have taken Herbert for an escapee, the biography notes, since he was moving towards Potsdam, not West Berlin. The prosecutors discontinued the case in autumn 1996 because they could not prove beyond doubt that the gunman had meant to kill. It was reopened after the father's complaint, but in February 1997 it was closed again: the gunman now said he had only meant to frighten Herbert and had fired from the hip with the barrel pointed at the ground, and the prosecutors accepted that he had almost certainly not recognised the danger of what he did. Franz Mende objected again, pointing out that there had been no escape attempt that could have justified any use of firearms, but the Brandenburg attorney general declined to press charges, finding a conviction unlikely.

Tall orange column with the names "Horst Plischke · Herbert Mende" and two grey panels in front of a brick wall and autumn trees
Memorial site for Horst Plischke and Herbert Mende at Berliner Straße 86 in Potsdam, photographed in 2020 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panel with a black-and-white aerial photograph of a bridge across water with labelled marks, above German and English text
Panel at the Potsdam memorial with a 1989 aerial photograph of the Glienicke Bridge marking Herbert Mende's route and the site of the shooting Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Read more

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. Hans-Hermann Hertle, “Herbert Mende”, 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. 2nd Border Brigade of the GDR Bereitschaftspolizei, investigation report on the use of firearms at the Glienicke Bridge on 8 July 1962, 9 July 1962 (BArch, DY 30/IV 2/12/76), transcript on Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that People's Police officers called on the border guard to fire as he ran off.
  4. Command of the GDR Bereitschaftspolizei, border report no. 189/62 for 8 July 1962, 9 July 1962 (BArch, VA 07/4740), transcript on Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that border guards shot him after a People's Police patrol had detained him, as he ran inland, away from the border.
  5. “Mauergedenkstätte Griebnitzsee” (inscription of the information panel at the memorial cross), Orte des Erinnerns, Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that he died of the consequences of the gunshot wound on 10 March 1968.
  6. “Mauerweg: Von Griebnitzsee zum Wannsee”, Berlin.de. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that he was shot in the border area with no intention of escaping and died of his injuries on 10 March 1968.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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 and 5 October 2026. Each round of corrections is described in the corrections log:

Further reading

Image credits

  • Memorial panel for Herbert Mende at Berliner Straße 86 in Potsdam, near the Glienicke Bridge, with his portrait (around 1950, photo: private ownership) and biography, photographed in 2020. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Memorial site for Horst Plischke and Herbert Mende at Berliner Straße 86 in Potsdam, photographed in 2020. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Panel at the Potsdam memorial with a 1989 aerial photograph of the Glienicke Bridge marking Herbert Mende's route and the site of the shooting. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Herbert Mende”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/mende-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.