Victims of the Wall

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Eberhard Schulz

1946–1966

Eberhard Schulz, a 20-year-old farmhand from Brusendorf, was shot dead by a border guard on 30 March 1966 near the Rudower Woods between Grossziethen and Neukölln, apparently after he had stood up and given himself up.

Panel with a large black-and-white photograph of a smiling young man with light hair, above German and English text headed "Eberhard Schulz"
Memorial panel for Eberhard Schulz on Kölner Damm in Großziethen, with his portrait (photo: BStU) and biography, photographed in 2017 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eberhard Schulz was born in Glasow, Brandenburg, on 11 March 1946. His parents separated, and he grew up with his mother and four siblings in Brusendorf, to the south of Berlin. After school he found work on a state-owned farm in Boddinsfelde as an unskilled farmhand.

He often talked with a workmate, his friend Dieter K., about how life differed in East and West; one of his brothers lived in West Berlin and was doing well. Dieter K. had helped clear rubble in 1964/65 when border houses in Grossziethen were demolished, and remembered the barrier there as little more than barbed wire and a mesh fence. When Dieter K. talked about this over a beer one evening in a larger group, some of the young men there decided they wanted to try to flee too; the two friends thought that too risky and wanted to go on their own.

Late on 29 March 1966 they took a bolt-clipper from the company workshop and cycled almost twenty kilometres to Grossziethen. At around 3 a.m. on 30 March they left their bicycles near the border and went on foot, guided by the lit high-rises in the West. They lost the bolt-clipper on the way, and the border was no longer as Dieter K. remembered it: there were now signal devices, dogs, a signal fence and a lit strip a good 250 metres wide. Dieter K. crawled under the inner fence but set off an alarm, and flares went up. Eberhard, apparently losing his nerve, had stayed on the near side of the fence. Both lay still in the grass.

When three guards reached Dieter K. and ordered him to stand with his hands up, Eberhard thought the order was meant for him too and stood up, a dim figure about 15 metres away whom the guards had not yet seen. Two versions of what followed exist. Dieter K. said a guard immediately fired from the hip at Eberhard, without a call or warning shot, and a second guard shouted to cease fire. The guards claimed Eberhard had suddenly bent down, reached into his jacket pocket and made to run. What is certain is that two shots struck him in the face and neck and that he died instantly. His biographer considers the guards' account hardly plausible: the escape had already failed, and he had given himself up in a hopeless situation.

His body was taken to the forensic institute at the Charité, and the Stasi told his mother of his death the next day. Dieter K. was sentenced on 1 June 1966 to two years in prison. Investigations opened in 1991 could not establish exactly how the shots were fired, as the accounts contradicted one another. In the guard's favour - he denied any intention to kill - the public prosecutor's office had to assume that he had acted in putative self-defence, and Dieter K.'s contrary account was not enough for a conviction. The investigation was discontinued in November 1996, and his death remained unpunished by law.

Tall orange column bearing the name "Eberhard Schulz" beside a grey panel with a portrait photograph, on cobblestones in front of green bushes
Memorial column and panel for Eberhard Schulz on Kölner Damm, Großziethen, photographed in 2017 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panel with a pale aerial photograph of the wide border strip with a marked line, above German and English text
Panel on the Eberhard Schulz memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking his escape route and place of death Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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, “Eberhard Schulz”, 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

  • Memorial panel for Eberhard Schulz on Kölner Damm in Großziethen, with his portrait (photo: BStU) and biography, photographed in 2017. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Memorial column and panel for Eberhard Schulz on Kölner Damm, Großziethen, photographed in 2017. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
  • Panel on the Eberhard Schulz memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking his escape route and place of death. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Eberhard Schulz”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/schulz-eberhard/

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.