Peter Fechter (14 January 1944 – 17 August 1962) was a bricklayer from Haigerloch in Germany, who at the age of 18 became one of the first, and probably the most famous, of the victims of the Berlin Wall.

About one year after the construction of the wall, he attempted to flee from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) together with his friend Helmut Kulbeik . 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 into the so-called death-strip (a strip running between the main wall and a parallel fence which they had recently started to construct), run across it and climb over the wall near Checkpoint Charlie into the Kreuzberg district of West Berlin.

However, while they were on the wall, shots were fired, and although Kulbeik succeeded in crossing the wall, Fechter was shot in the pelvis while still on the wall, in plain view of hundreds of witnesses. He fell back into the death-strip on the Eastern side, where he lay, still in view of Western onlookers including journalists. Despite his screams, he received no medical assistance either from the East or the West side. He bled to death after about an hour. Hundreds in West Berlin formed a spontaneous demonstration, shouting "murderers" at the border guards.

The lack of medical assistance for Peter Fechter was attributed to mutual fear: western bystanders were apparently prevented at gunpoint from assisting him (although 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). Likewise the head of the GDR border platoon stated that he was afraid to intervene, because of an incident just three days earlier when a GDR soldier Rudi Arnstadt had probably been shot by a western soldier. Nonetheless, the GDR border soldiers did retrieve Peter Fechter's dead body an hour after he fell.

Commemoration

A cross was placed on the western side near the spot where Fechter was shot and bled to death. On the first anniversary of the shooting, a wreath was placed there by Willy Brandt, the then mayor of West Berlin, together with US Commander Polk . After German reunification in 1990, the Peter-Fechter-Stele monument was constructed on Zimmerstraße , at the actual spot where he had died on the Eastern side, and this has been a focal point for some of the commemorations regarding the wall. The shooting has also been the subject of documentaries on German television.

Trial

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.

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."