History lesson - The Schießbefehl fairy tale.

Are any of you 18 years old or younger at the moment? In that case,

1) I am now entitled to call you "young whippersnappers" and crap like this, because I'm nine years older than you and thus, out of your teenager perspective, practically ancient, and

2) I feel I have to educate you about an actual news story circulating in Germany at the moment, and the load of history behind it. Because I believe in the motto "one who doesn't know history is doomed to repeat it."

As we all know, Germans practically invented historical mistakes. Failed democratic revolution? Yeah, us. Beating the shit out of France? Still us. Starting a whole freaking world war (and even worse, having the audacity of losing that one)? Us, totally. Not getting the hint and attacking the whole world again? Yeah, we're the ones. (and that enumeration is only of the last 150 years, and leaves out the worst part.) We kinda have a very slow learning curve.

History can be fun, as long as you ain't the person caught in the middle.

(Note: I know it's quite long. Think of it as a educational fable that happens to be true.)

Once upon a time in the ancient past of 1962, there was a young bloke, called Peter Fechter, and his pal, Helmut Kulbeik. Peter and Helmut were bricklayers, or rather, bricklayer apprentices. What an exciting job for two 18-year-olds, don't ya think? Peter and Helmut must've thought otherwise.
They also had some other interesting thoughts. Such as, "I'm allowed to disagree with some people". Or "I wanna have the right to vote". Or "I want to go into a store and buy the food I want, not just the canned tuna that's here this week". Silly Peter and Helmut, don't you think? All those luxuries. And freedom of speech, such jokesters.
Because Peter and Helmut, like many people, had the misfortune of being born in a really assy part of the world. That part of the world was called "Deutsche Demokratische Republik" (German democratic republic). Sounds much nicer than "Bundesrepublic Deutschland"(federal republic of Germany), don't you think? Because it has "democratic" in its name.
Peter and Helmut didn't quite think so. In fact, many people thought the GDR was crap in a tin-can, and left. This, however, drew the attention of the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht. The Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht was so democratic he continuously got voted with 99 %. Because, you see, Peter and Helmut were lying when they said they couldn't vote. They just had to vote for the party of the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht, because there wasn't any other.

And because the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht was so benevolent, he was very, very sad when all the young folk turned their backs on him and left the "sozialistisches deutsches Arbeiterparadies" (the socialistic german worker's paradise). "Why are they leaving? This is my worker's paradise! They even get cans of tuna!", the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht said.

But since he was very wise, he had an idea. The Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht build a wall so that his stupid subjects, er, I mean democratic voters, wouldn't go into the very dangerous and hostile countries of the west. The Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht didn't tell his voters of his project first, because he knew they often had strange ideas about stuff, just like Peter and Helmut. So he told them, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten." (no one has the intention of building a wall). But he did. On August 13th, 1961, he stopped all traffic within a city, and build a wall around half of the city, because only half of this city was his. The other half belonged to the enemy. The wall was called "antifaschistischer Schutzwall" (anti fascist protection wall), because he wanted to protect Peter and Helmut and all the others from having strange and stupid ideas ever again.

But Peter and Helmut did have a stupid idea. One year later, on August 17th, 1962, after they finished working, they wanted to climb over the wall and get into the part of the city that was dangerous and fascist and capitalistic.
Helmut got over the wall. Peter however, couldn't. It may have been one of the 30 bullets perforating him that kinda impeded his climbing ability. For the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht had told his soldiers to prevent his voters from having strange ideas at all costs.

But Peter wasn't dead yet. He lay just 1 metre off the enemy city, hunched against the wall, and called out for help. Now, the soldiers on both sides had a problem. The fascist American soldiers who patrolled the Border for their fascist German friends couldn't help Peter because he still was in the East part. Going there with soldiers? No, that means war, not with the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht, of course, but with the Even Wiser And More Benevolent Emperor Nikita Sergejewitsch Chruschtschow. So the American soldiers stood there and did nothing.

The Soldiers of the Workers Paradise couldn't do anything either, because a) the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht had forbidden them to go into the zone he had humourously named "Todesstreifen"(death stripe), so that his soldiers didn't get bad ideas themselves. And b) several soldiers of the Workers Paradise had been shot dead by the fascist Germans, so everyone was reluctant to go into the death stripe himself.

And so, Peter Fechter lay against the wall and bled. Not silently, but complaining loudly. At least, at first. The people of the Worker's Paradise weren't allowed near the wall, of course, but thousands of people of the Fascist Federal Republic were watching him. They wanted to help, but the Americans would shoot them if they crossed the border. Or the soldiers of the Wise And Benevolent King Ulbricht. Probably both.
So, Peter gave up his pleas for help after a while. The massive internal bleeding over the last hour may have contributed to his acceptance of fate. After he had lost consciousness, the soldiers of the Workers Paradise were brave enough to step into the death stripe, and pull Peter back into the GDR where he belonged. Nevertheless, Peter died in the hospital later. He wasn't the first, and certainly not the last person to have a stupid idea up until 1989.

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Now y'all are probably wondering, "nice horror story, but what the fucking fuck this has to do with current events, Teshik?"

Well, the news story itself is waaaay less spectacular. It seems someone has found a dusty old document that proves GDR soldiers were ordered to shoot upon people should they try to escape via the German-German border. There is an uproar on this. Seemingly, people are starting to forget that the people ruling the GDR were lying sacks of shit, and start to believe them when they say "there has never been an order to shoot people".

People tend to forget. And, more important, people tend to forget the bad stuff first.
When people wax nostalgic about the GDR, you'll probably hear about that there wasn't any unemployment, and lower rates of crime, and all those nice marches of the socialist party, and nude culture, and better childcare, and women's rights, and their first car, a trabi.
But the GDR wasn't all sunshine and lollypops. Sometimes, politicians are lying liars who lie, but the facts stay what they are. The GDR spied on their own people, imprisoned them, and ordered their soldiers to shoot people trying to escape from all this. Men, women, and children died at the Mauer. Just because that happened twenty or more years ago, doesn't mean you can forget the bad stuff.