The Berlin Wall Memorial has identified 140 people killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989. Most were shot by East German border guards operating under the standing Schießbefehl shoot-to-kill order, first issued by the regime in 1960 and reaffirmed periodically; others drowned in the Spree and Havel rivers, were killed by mines or other devices, or died in accidents during escape attempts. A small number killed themselves on learning they could not leave.
The most authoritative count is that of the Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer, the Berlin Wall Memorial, which by 2011 had identified 140 deaths directly attributable to the border regime between 1961 and 1989. Other researchers, using a broader definition that includes suicides, fatal heart attacks at the border, and deaths of border guards, count 251 or more. The exact number depends on where one draws the line between “victim of the wall” and “victim of circumstance.”
The first death came eleven days after the wall went up. Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor, was shot on August 24, 1961, while trying to swim across the Humboldt Hafen. He was the first of a hundred and more. Some victims were children, like Jörg Hartmann, killed by a mine in 1966 at the age of ten, and Cengaver Katranci, shot in 1978 at the age of five. Some were old. Many were young men of military age, who were suspected of trying to escape for political reasons and who received the most violent response.
The guards who killed them were not rogue operators. The shoot-to-kill order, the Schießbefehl, was issued by the East German leadership in 1960 and reaffirmed periodically. Guards who shot escapees received bonuses, decorations, and favorable housing. Those who refused were reassigned. The Berlin Wall Memorial and the Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz educational center have documented the chain of command in detail.
The deaths are commemorated at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, which has installed a cross of iron for each victim, a continuous metal seam laid into the paving. For the longer history of the wall and its place in the Cold War, see the article treatment.