Hans-Jürgen Starrost

Hans-Jürgen Starrost was born in Berlin on 24 June 1955. After the 10th grade he trained as a skilled construction worker with a state-owned underground engineering combine in Berlin, and then did his military service in the National People's Army. By the age of 22 he had, in the state's terms, fulfilled what was expected of a young East German citizen.

Afterwards he reportedly changed jobs often and at times did not work at all, and he repeatedly tried to avoid the so-called educational measures imposed on him by work collectives and state bodies. At the end of 1979 a court gave him eleven months in prison for impairing public order and security. He had committed no crime; his offence was shirking work. Perhaps, his biographers suggest, he had not yet found where he wanted to live and work. He served his sentence until October 1980 in the Rüdersdorf prison, which was attached to the cement works and was a labour camp that endangered the prisoners' health.

After his release he had to hand in his identity card, take an assigned job and report regularly to a police officer. He soon stopped doing both. On 7 April 1981, when he telephoned the officer, he learned from the officer's wife that he was wanted for breaching the controls imposed on him and was to go back to prison, and he went into hiding. On 13 April the 25-year-old travelled via Schönefeld to Teltow, hoping to stay with a friend from his army days. He did not find him, and in a bar decided to try to cross the nearby border the following night. He later told his interrogators that he had not wanted to go back to prison under any circumstances. On the way he stole a metal ladder from the Sigridshorst housing settlement.

At about 1:10 a.m. two guards heard him trying to climb the inner fence, found the ladder and raised the alarm. He hid on a nearby property, where a police officer saw him and, with the safety catch of his pistol off, ordered him to give up. He ran, was dazzled by a spotlight and was caught by a border soldier who twisted his arm behind his back. The officer then shot him in the stomach at close range. The files contain only the accounts of those involved. According to the soldier, the man stopped at once when he seized his wrist, and then the policeman suddenly stood before him with his pistol raised; the captured man is said to have lashed out with his free right hand. The officer said Starrost had lunged at him and the gun went off. The officer himself told the Stasi that he no longer had any reason to use his weapon, since the man was surrounded; the Stasi's own tests found the pistol could not fire by accident if handled correctly.

Badly hurt, he was taken first to a border base. The border regiment's military doctor diagnosed only a minor injury and raised no objection to a Stasi officer questioning him first; the interrogation had to be interrupted several times for urgently needed medical measures. Only afterwards was he operated on at the army hospital in Potsdam. His kidneys then failed, and a week passed before he was moved to intensive care at the Potsdam District Hospital. It was too late. He died on 16 May 1981 at around 7:30 a.m.

On the day of the shooting the Stasi decided his family should not be told until after the SED party congress. On 20 May 1981 his mother and sister were informed. Contrary to the officer's own statement, they were told that he had attacked the policeman after a warning shot, so that the officer had acted in self-defence, and they were pressed to agree to cremation. His urn was buried in the cemetery in Rahnsdorf on 3 June 1981, with his immediate family present. The investigation of the officer for attempted killing was discontinued in June 1995, the prosecutor accepting that he had not meant to kill.

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. Martin Ahrends/Udo Baron/Hans-Hermann Hertle, “Hans-Jürgen Starrost”, 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

• Wikipedia (Deutsch)

Image credits

• Hans-Jürgen Starrost, photographed from the portrait on his memorial column on the Berlin Wall Trail (the panel gives the original photo's date as unknown). Assenmacher, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
• Memorial column for Hans-Jürgen Starrost on the Berlin Wall Trail at Berlin-Lichterfelde. Assenmacher, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
• Panel with a 1989 aerial photograph marking Hans-Jürgen Starrost's escape route and the site where he was shot. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Hans-Jürgen Starrost”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/starrost-hans-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.