14 Facts About Egon Schultz

Egon Schultz was a German sergeant of the East German Border Troops who became the fifty-second known person to die at the Berlin Wall.

Egon Schultz subsequently became a national hero in East Germany, with hundreds of memorials and schools named in his honor.

Egon Schultz's death caused a public sensation in both East Germany and West Germany.

Egon Schultz trained as a school teacher in Putbus and at 19 years old began working as a teacher in Dierkow near Rostock in September 1962, but shortly after beginning his teaching career it would be interrupted with his conscription to the National People's Army.

Egon Schultz's final visit home, just days prior to his death, was at the same time that his parents were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.

On 4 October 1964, Egon Schultz was assigned as a reserve to the command post at Arkonaplatz in Berlin-Mitte, East Berlin.

At about half past midnight, the two Stasi agents returned with the border guards, including Egon Schultz, who approached Furrer before he recognized much too late that a gun was pointed in his direction.

Egon Schultz died on the way to the Krankenhaus der Volkspolizei.

Investigations were opened in East Germany and West Berlin against the escape helpers, who admitted to West Berlin investigators that one of them did fire a gun, but there was no proof that Egon Schultz was killed from that particular gunshot.

The East German government claimed that Egon Schultz was tragically murdered by Western agents.

East German authorities quickly discovered that Egon Schultz had been accidentally shot by one of his own comrades, and that the fatal shot came from a Kalashnikov, not from an escape helper.

An open letter to Frieda Schultz, the mother of Egon Schultz, was attached to each of the balloons; it is not known whether or not Frau Schultz, over 230 kilometers away in Rostock, actually received a copy of this letter.

The Egon Schultz saga drew great attention not only in East Germany, but in West Germany, because the Stern editor-in-chief Henri Nannen had purchased exclusive rights to Tunnel 57 in advance, essentially co-financing the building of tunnel.

When Reinhard Furrer died in an airplane accident in September 1995 and it became known that Christian Zobel had already died, the lawyers representing Egon Schultz's mother filed charges against the other escape helpers as murder accomplices, charges which were eventually dropped.