User:Eli185.2/Conrad Doebbeke

Conrad Doebbecke (* August 26, 1889; † September 8, 1954 in Berlin) was a victim of the GDR border regime before the Berlin Wall was built. He was shot in his car on August 10, 1954 near the Dreilinden border crossing and died as a result about a month later.

Life
Dr. Conrad Doebbecke worked as a lawyer in Berlin before and during the Nazi dictatorship. He was denazified as "not incriminated" in 1949. He lived in the West Berlin district of Wannsee and owned several houses in Berlin. Doebbecke had been suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer's for years, which severely impaired his judgment. As a result, he was no longer legally competent in 1954 and the police had taken away his driver's license. However, his wife accepted the fact that he still occasionally went for a drive.

Circumstances of death
At around noon on August 10, 1954, Doebbecke drove from West Berlin on the autobahn close to the GDR checkpoint at Dreilinden, where he was on GDR territory. Doebbecke, who had been spotted at this point several times before, got out, watched the traffic for a few minutes, then got back into his car and drove back to West Berlin. The command situation at the Dreilinden border command was unclear. On the one hand, the GDR border police were supposed to prevent civilians from observing their control activities. On the other hand, this section of road was reserved for inter-zone traffic, which meant that other vehicles had to be specially checked. Like many orders in the border police, this one was only passed on verbally, which gave the officers on the ground considerably more discretion. On the other hand, the Soviet city commander, General Pyotr A. Dibrova, who was ultimately responsible for the East German border police in Berlin until 1955, had forbidden any control activities on this section of the route after the death of Joachim Wozniak in 1953. However, the commander of the Blankenfelde border patrol had only passed this order on to Dreilinden verbally, which is why it was forgotten.

Two border police officers tried to stop Doebbecke. He did not stop, but increased his speed. After the sergeant in command of the patrol had fired a warning shot, he ordered his subordinate to shoot. Of the four shots fired, three hit Doebbecke. He was seriously injured by bullet wounds to the left shoulder, the left thigh and a shot to the pelvis. Doebbecke was able to get out of the car, but then collapsed. The two border police officers carried him out of sight of the passing western cars, applied emergency bandages and arranged for Doebbecke to be taken to Potsdam Municipal Hospital. After an emergency operation, he initially recovered and it appeared that his life was out of danger. However, Doebbecke died on September 8, 1954 as a result of his injuries.

Shortly after Wozniak's death, the shots fired at Doebbecke caused a sensation in West Berlin. All the West Berlin newspapers reported on it. The incident led to disagreements between the occupying powers. The American city commander, General George Honnen, protested to the Soviet city commander against the "act of pure arbitrariness". Honnen emphasized, also referring to Wozniak, that the "indiscriminate and reckless use of firearms" was inappropriate. He asked the Soviet commander to put an end to the series of incidents "by taking appropriate measures". In addition to the State Security, Soviet authorities investigated the incident, as did the West Berlin police.

After the fall of the Wall, the Berlin public prosecutor's office launched a new investigation into manslaughter in 1998. The border police officers had not shot at the tires, but "in a manner suitable for killing" at the car and its occupants, accepting serious injury or even the death of the driver. However, since a police investigation had taken place in which the shooters had been questioned as defendants, according to the investigating public prosecutor, it could not be assumed that the statute of limitations had been suspended, which is why the proceedings should be discontinued. It was assumed that the investigation by the border police and state security at the time had basically complied with the principles of the rule of law.

Literature

 * Gerhard Sälter, Johanna Dietrich, Fabian Kuhn: Die vergessenen Toten. Todesopfer des DDR-Grenzregimes in Berlin von der Teilung bis zum Mauerbau (1948–1961). Ch. Links, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-933-9, S. 175–180.