Talk:Killing of Peter Fechter

message: Hello, and thank you very much for your message to me at :en:User talk:Trainspotter.  Thank you for inviting to me to reply in English.  To be honest, I constructed the page :en:Peter Fechter (which previously did not exist) using facts accumulated from whatever other web pages I could find -- I am not a historian, and do not have access to primary source materials.  I am sure that this means that there are some problems with the article, but I thought that this would be a good start at least.  But stupidly, I did not keep a record of the relevant URLs.  If I get the time, I will try to trace again the pages where these facts were quoted.  If you have opinions regarding the believability of these sources, then I would be very interested to hear, because so far I have tended simply to believe what I read.  If I do not get the time to do this, then please feel free to remove things which you think are too suspicious. Best wishes. Trainspotter englisch 18:44, 11. Okt 2004 (CEST)
Hello again,
Okay, I have now had a look on the web, to look again for the sources, and here are the sources for the things which I wrote when I drafted the original version of the article here.
As I said, I do not have access to primary sources, so I just started with what I could find online, and I make no claims about how good these sources are.  If you think that some sources are unreliable, then please change the article however you think will improve it.  What I wrote is only a starting point!
The list is in the format:
:  Your comments to me.
Location of source
: Quote from the web page
:  The plan was to hide in a carpenter's workshop near the wall and, after
:  observing the border guards from there, to jump out of a window" (I found
:  something on that, but it is about an "empty abandoned house" and not a
:  "carpenter's workshop")
There is a page, now disappeared but still on the Google cache, at the URL, describing a documentary in 2002 on WDR Fernsehen:
http://www.lernzeit.de/themen/sendungen/dok/dok100802_inhalt.phtml
: In Mauernähe verstecken sich beide in einer Schreinerei und beobachten die Kontrollgänge der Grenzpolizisten.
:(With Babelfish I translated Schreinerei as carpenter's workshop.)
 
:  "Fechter was shot in the pelvis" (my book says that he was hit in the back and
:  the belly)
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/germany/stories/order101/
I don't think it's the same article that I saw before, but it has: 
: The 18-year-old Fechter was shot in the pelvis
 
:  "according to a report in Time Magazine, a US second-lieutenant on the scene
:  received specific orders from the US Commandant in West Berlin to stand firm
:  and do nothing" (This is indeed an interesting addition to the comment of the
:  GDR commander. Is there an online version of this article?)
I didn't find an online version of the whole article, but here is a page with excerpts:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/09/1st.draft/
: One conscience-stricken U.S. second lieutenant could stand it no longer, picked up the "hot line" telephone to Major General Albert Watson II, the U.S. commandant in West Berlin. Back came the order: "Lieutenant, you have your orders. Stand fast. Do nothing."
:  "In March 1997 two former East German guards Rolf Friedrich and Erich
Schreiber faced manslaughter charges for Fechter's death, at which they
admitted to his shooting. They were both convicted, and sentenced to one
year's imprisonment on probation." (amazingly, but there seems to be no
information on this on the web. I googled for the names, but there only appear
4 english webpages. Could it be that some name is misspelled?)
http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-kurier/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/1997/0304/none/0010/
And from the above review from lernzeit.de (the one now in the Google cache):
: Im März 1997 wurden schließlich Erich Schreiben und Rolf Friedrich zu einjährigen Freiheitsstrafen auf Bewährung verurteilt.
(In fact this review also has the spelling "Schreiben". but this seems unlikely to me.  Even the Berlin Online article has Schreiber.)
"It also emerged during the trial that any aid attempt from the West had
indeed been made impossible, but according to a report from forensic
pathologist Otto Prokop, "Fechter had no chance of survival. The shot in the
right hip had caused the severest internal injuries."" (That one is very
interesting)
See the Berlin Online article above.
: In einem Stasi-Bericht hieß es später, ein Bergungsversuch sei vom Westen "unmöglich gemacht worden"
: "Fechter hatte keine überlebenschance. Der Treffer in die rechte Hüfte hatte schwerste innere Verletzungen Facts that I doubt:
  
"shots were fired, ..., in plain view of hundreds of witnesses" (It seemslogical that the shots were seen only by some people that happened to be
there. Later, when Fechter began to cry, hundreds of people thered.)
I think I got that from the German wikipedia article.
:"wurde Fechter vor den Augen von hunderten Zeugen noch auf der Mauer angeschossen"
 
"western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him"
(About this, there is a big difference among the eastern and western
reports. Some reports say that the eastern soldiers used teargas (not guns) to
prevent western people from climbing the wall. Others say that the eastern
soldiers were prevented at gunpoint by the western police... In my opinion,
there should be reliable evidence, to have this claim in the article)
http://www.dailysoft.com/berlinwall/photographs/berlinwall-1963jo/berlinwall-1963-005.htm
:Bystanders in the West tried to rescue him, but were prevented from it at gunpoint.
209.157.64.200/focus/f-vetscor/1223085/posts
:In August 1962, Fechter bled to death at the base of the wall in the "death zone". Guards had shot him in the back as he tried to escape. Bystanders in the West tried to rescue him, but were prevented from it at gunpoint.
:: Hello Trainspotter, thanks for your reply!
:: I don't have much time at the moment, so only a few things:
:: I am not a historian, neither. I used my book about the Berlin wall and the internet for research. When I compared different sources I noticed that there are quite a few contraticting details. Together with the discussion on the German page this showed me that, apparently, not all the sources can be trust.
::Thanks for the links. The info about the US orders is a good one, it makes a good addition to the statement of the GDR commander.
::On www.berlinonline.de/berliner-kurier you can find more articles about Peter Fechter, if you search for "Fechter Mauer".
::The "hundrets of spectators" claim was on the German wikipedia, you are right. I changed it there, because it seems not very logical to me. Why should there be so many bypassers already at that point? They gathered later.
::I found one more page that has the names of the GDR border guards: . It is the homepage of Thomas Geue, the husband of Gisela Geue, a sister of Peter Fechter.
::I will add some of the new info to the German page when I have more time.
::EDIT: You might be interested in this  German-English online dictionary. It is the best one I know.--:de:Benutzer:MKI
[There is a spanish very famous song dedicated to Peter Fechter: "Libre" by Nino Bravo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfpqKPsAjAM&feature=related]  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.158.87.223 (talk) 11:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  From [[User:Trainspotter]] 

message: "Fechter was shot ... in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. He fell back ... where he lay, still in view of Western onlookers including journalists ..."
How did all those witnesses happen to be near the wall at that time ? I guess the onlookers and journalists came there on hearsay. This needs to be mentioned. Jay 17:00, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite clear now. Jay (talk) 05:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Journalists at scene of crime?

message: Fetcher was killed the same morning I was born. Very happy to see such a good article on him. All I had read before was the article in The Times (UK) the day after, but I do seem to remember that he died in the morning, 7 to 8 am. Anyone know when he died? Squiquifox 15:52, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Time of death

message: "He fell back into the death-strip on the Eastern side, where he lay, still in view of Western onlookers including journalists... Hundreds in West Berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting "murderers" at the border guards."
He fell on the Eastern Side, in plain view of the Western onlookers? Does that make sense or am I just missing something? Ravenstorm 13:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the early days it wasn't a full concrete wall. It was more of a barbed-wire fence with a no-man's land. --Dhartung | Talk 13:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Examining the photo on our page and comparing with this construction photo I believe that the wall at that point was at least shoulder-height but not much more. It would have been possible to view inside the death zone from overlooking buildings as well, especially if the wall jogged at all right there. --Dhartung | Talk 13:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy? 

message: It's now POV to say that East Germany was communist? That's incredible. --Dhartung | Talk 21:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: East Germany was communist. That's a matter of fact. But that doesn't make an individual person a communist. Kingjeff (talk) 18:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not communist? 

message: As can be seen in the article, we need to improve it adding citations and references. Those mentioned by the atarter of the artivle in the first section if the discussion seem good enough. I don't undersatand why they are not on in the article.
As can be seen in the article, we need to improve it adding citations and references. Those mentioned by the starter of the article in the first section if the discussion seem good enough. I don't understand why they are not on the article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Universal001 (talk • contribs) 12:24, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inline citations required 

message: Russian article states - he was picked by ambulance after an hour and died in the ambulence; which contradicts to english article saying Fechter bled and died on the ground and dead body was picked. Is there a reliable source about that? 217.50.168.214 (talk) 17:34, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conditions of death 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Who is "Devin Hernandez?" Hunter Hutchins (talk) 09:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: "Devin Hernandez" is the work of some anonymous vandal. And from 2014 too. I'm amazed no-one else noticed it until now, TBH... BSanders46 (talk) 13:48, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Devin Hernandez