Victims of the Wall

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Ulrich Steinhauer

1956–1980

A 24-year-old carpenter from the Baltic coast serving as an East German border soldier, Ulrich Steinhauer was shot dead on 4 November 1980 near Schönwalde by his junior guard, who then escaped to West Berlin.

Black-and-white head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man with dark hair in a uniform jacket with collar patches, white shirt and tie
Portrait of Ulrich Steinhauer in the uniform of the GDR border troops (Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-W1111-033) Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-W1111-033 / Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons

Ulrich Steinhauer was born on 13 March 1956 in Behrenshagen, near the Baltic Sea, the third of six children. His father worked as a warehouse clerk at a state-owned fibre board factory in Ribnitz-Damgarten, and his mother brought up the children at home. After school in Behrenshagen and Damgarten he trained as a carpenter, qualifying in 1973 and staying on with the agricultural enterprise as a skilled worker. His youngest sister, Ilona, remembered him as careful with money, saving for holidays; each summer he toured East Germany with a tent.

In November 1979 he was called up to the border troops, first with Border Training Regiment 40 in Oranienburg and, from May 1980, with Border Regiment 34 in Gross Glienicke. Like most of his comrades, he counted the days until release. He told his superiors he would use his weapon only in an extreme emergency, and, according to his sister, he hoped to get through his 18 months without ever having to shoot. On 2 November 1980 he wrote to his parents and sister that he had been promoted to lance corporal and made guard leader, ending the letter by counting the 172 days he still had to serve. The letter arrived on 7 November, three days after his death.

On 4 November 1980 he was on duty as guard leader from 1 p.m. on the Staaken-Schönwalde section, opposite Eiskeller in the West Berlin district of Spandau. His partner was a newly assigned junior guard who, unknown to him, had chosen this stretch of the border for an escape. Shortly after 4 p.m. the junior guard put his plan into action. If his own later account is to be believed, he unplugged the border communication system without his guard leader noticing, then readied his gun; the noise made Ulrich Steinhauer turn round and take his own gun from his shoulder. The junior guard said he then called on Ulrich Steinhauer to throw down his weapon, fired warning shots and then five shots when his guard leader supposedly aimed at him. The fatal bullet, however, had entered Ulrich Steinhauer's back and pierced his heart. He died before a doctor arrived.

Border soldiers first carried his body and weapon out of the death strip, then on orders put them back roughly where they had lain. This, and the fact that one of them could no longer recall where he had found which weapon, meant that a reliable forensic investigation, of the kind later falsely presented to the West Berlin prosecutor-general, was possible only to a limited extent. For a day his body lay in the border strip in view of western media. The junior guard climbed the Wall at a low point, reported to the West Berlin police and was taken into custody. The West Berlin prosecutor-general's office refused East Germany's extradition request.

West Berlin prosecutors charged him with murder, but the youth chamber of the Berlin Regional Court held that it was not proven with sufficient certainty that the fatal shot in the back had been fired first, so the trial was opened for manslaughter; in the autumn of 1981 he was convicted and given a youth sentence of six years. The court said that in a conflict between freedom and life, life takes priority. The Federal Court of Justice twice set the sentence aside on appeal. He was released from custody in June 1982, and in early February 1983 the Berlin Regional Court reduced the sentence to four years and nine months (on probation, according to the research project), finding that he deeply regretted what he had done. Through informants, the Stasi followed his new life in West Germany closely; it first planned to bring him back to East Germany and then tried to drive him to suicide with threatening letters.

The East German defence minister posthumously promoted him to the rank of NCO (Unteroffizier) and awarded him a military order, and the FDJ youth organisation gave him its Arthur Becker Medal in gold. He was buried with military honours on 12 November 1980 at the Old Cemetery in Ribnitz-Damgarten, in a funeral arranged by the authorities without any say from his family. A school, a border company, streets and a boxing tournament were named after him, and wreaths were laid on his grave on set dates. His family could not escape this. His sister Ilona later said that her brother had only been doing his service, and that he was taken from the family a second time when he was made into a hero.

Tall orange column with his name beside a paved path in green scrub, next to a grey post with a portrait panel
Memorial column for Ulrich Steinhauer on the Mauerweg at Eiskeller in Berlin-Spandau Photo: Christian Gering, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panel with a black-and-white aerial photograph of fields and the border strip marked with two symbols
Panel on the memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking the place where Ulrich Steinhauer died, at Eiskeller Photo: Christian Gering, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tall dark stone with his name and inscription in a grave bed with wreaths and evergreens, under a large conifer
Grave of Ulrich Steinhauer in Ribnitz-Damgarten Photo: Matti Blume, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Also died on the outer ring between Berlin-Spandau and Schönwalde

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. Martin Ahrends/Udo Baron/Hans-Hermann Hertle, “Ulrich Steinhauer”, 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. Joachim Nawrocki, report on the East German extradition request, Die Zeit 47/1980, 14 November 1980 (read in the Wayback Machine copy of the Zeit archive). Accessed 5 October 2026. Source for: that the West Berlin prosecutor-general refused East Germany's extradition request, and that the junior guard climbed the border barriers.
  4. “»Die Augen feucht vor Wut«. Die Todesgrenze der Deutschen (III)”, Der Spiegel 28/1991, 7 July 1991, citing the report of the GDR border troops' chief and the autopsy report. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that the fatal bullet entered his back, that the murder charge was dropped, and the six-year sentence for manslaughter in 1981.
  5. Katrin Aue, “Neuer Streit um Mauergedenkstätte – Wer ist Opfer, wer ist Täter?”, rbb Klartext, 17 June 2009, with his sister Ilona (Wayback Machine copy). Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that the fatal shot passed through his back into his heart, and his last letter home counting the 172 days he still had to serve.
  6. “Opfer der Mauer (DDR-Grenzer)”, Gedenktafeln in Berlin (Aktives Museum Faschismus und Widerstand / Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand), entry for a removed plaque at Schützenstrasse. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that in February 1983 the sentence was reduced on appeal to a youth sentence of four years and nine months.
  7. Joachim Nawrocki, report in Die Zeit 47/1980, 14 Nov 1980 (on the refused extradition) Source for: the criminal proceedings after the death.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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

Cite this page

“Ulrich Steinhauer”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/steinhauer-ulrich/

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.