Victims of the Wall

All 140 people

Michael Schmidt

1964–1984

Michael Schmidt, a 20-year-old carpenter from Schwanebeck, was shot by border guards on 1 December 1984 as he climbed the last wall near the Wollankstrasse S-Bahn station, and died hours later after medical help was long delayed.

Large granite boulder on a paved circle, engraved with a list of names and death dates under the heading "Den Opfern der Mauer"
Memorial stone "Den Opfern der Mauer" on Bernauer Straße in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen, which lists Michael Schmidt Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Michael Schmidt was born on 20 October 1964 in Bernau near Berlin and grew up in Schwanebeck with a brother and a sister. After school he trained as a carpenter with a building repair company in Pankow. His father said he was not someone to keep his views to himself. When the Bernau military district command pressed him to sign up for three years in the National People's Army he refused, and he flatly rejected service at the border; he is said to have told the recruiters that he had no intention of shooting unarmed people in the back.

He sometimes spoke to colleagues about leaving for the West, and in 1984, as the first large wave of departures from East Germany began, his intention to apply for an exit visa grew firmer. After talking with his parents, and knowing that families were often held to account for their children's actions, he decided against it out of consideration for his brother, who was at university. That November his company sent him to rebuild houses on Wollankstrasse and Schulzestrasse, right by the border, and from the upper floors he could study the fortifications closely.

On the evening of 30 November he went to a youth club disco in Pankow; his friends later felt he had been saying goodbye. He left before midnight. In the early hours of 1 December he entered one of the buildings where he had been working, with a companion who has never been identified, and took two wooden ladders left at the site. He climbed into a back courtyard and over the first barrier, by then alone. Crossing the signal fence set off an alarm, alerting the two guards in a tower about 100 metres away; one fired from the tower, while the other climbed down and fired from the ground. He had reached the last wall and was gripping its top when bullets struck him in the back and knee, and he fell. One of the guards who fired later claimed to have asked him, agitated, what on earth he was doing, and said that he had replied only that they had got him after all.

Witnesses in East Berlin had been sworn to secrecy by the Stasi, but after the Wall fell they described how three more guards arrived, one of whom prodded the wounded man with his foot, and how he was dragged by the legs to the patrol path, loaded onto a military vehicle and taken to the watchtower, out of sight. He begged for help but was merely covered up. Almost an hour passed before he received medical care; at about 4:25 a.m. he was taken by ambulance to the People's Police Hospital in Mitte, where he died at about 6:20 a.m. He was recorded there as "XY". A 1991 medical opinion concluded that quick surgery would almost certainly have saved him, but an investigation into killing by omission over the delay was discontinued in March 1992 because no one could be shown to be responsible.

That morning his parents found his room empty. After western news reported a presumably fatal escape attempt near Wollankstrasse station, they went to the police in Bernau and to nearby hospitals but could learn nothing; for four days the Stasi put them off. On 4 December 1984 the Stasi brought them to the military prosecutor's office, where they were told falsely that their son had attacked a soldier. They were warned that their other son's studies would be ended if details spread. Michael Schmidt was buried in the cemetery in Buch on 10 December 1984 under Stasi surveillance; nearly all his work colleagues came, and were reprimanded for it.

His father was already asking for answers in December 1989. On 5 February 1992 the Berlin Regional Court convicted the two guards of joint manslaughter and gave them suspended sentences of one year and six months and one year and nine months. His death was later among the main charges in the trials of members of the SED Politburo and the National Defence Council.

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Also died on the sector border between Berlin-Pankow and Berlin-Reinickendorf

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, “Michael Schmidt”, 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.

Image credits

  • Memorial stone "Den Opfern der Mauer" on Bernauer Straße in Berlin-Gesundbrunnen, which lists Michael Schmidt. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Michael Schmidt”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/schmidt-michael/

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.