Chris Gueffroy and his friend Christian Gaudian mistakenly believed that Schiessbefehl – the standing order to shoot anyone who attempted to cross the Berlin Wall – had been lifted. On the night of 5–6 February 1989 they were shot while trying to climb over the wall. Gueffroy died at the scene, but Gaudian was not fatally injured. He was arrested and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Gaudian was freed on bail by the East German government in September 1989, and on 17 October he was transferred to West Berlin.
In the early hours of 8 March 1989 – thirty days after Chris Gueffroy's death – Winfried Freudenberg attempted to cross the wall in an improvised gas balloon. The police were alerted by a passer–by who came across Freudenberg and his wife Sabine inflating their balloon, but they refrained from shooting because of the danger of triggering an explosion of the natural gas, which was leaking from the balloon. Freudenberg was aloft for more than five hours, but eventually fell from a considerable height over the West Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf. He died immediately upon hitting the ground; nearly every bone in his body was broken, and virtually all of his internal organs were damaged.
Sabine Freudenberg, who'd pulled out of the attempt when it became apparent that the balloon wouldn't lift both Winfried and her, was arrested on her return home. Because of international attention and pressure over the recent shooting of Chris Gueffroy, she was given the relatively lenient sentence of three years' probation, and then granted amnesty in October 1989. On 9 November, East Germany announced that its borders were open, with immediate effect, and that date would become known as the one on which the Berlin Wall came down.
© Haydn Thompson 2023