Hildegard Johanna Maria Trabant was an East German woman who became the fiftieth known person to die at the Berlin Wall.
14 Facts About Hildegard Trabant
2.
Hildegard Trabant Pohl was born on 12 June 1927 in Berlin, Weimar Republic, and grew up in the city.
3.
Hildegard Trabant was loyal to the East German regime, having joined the governing Socialist Unity Party in 1949 at the age of 22, where she was valued as an active party member.
4.
Possibly facilitating their residence there, Hildegard Trabant was a property manager in the Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltung Friedrichshain, a municipal housing administration in Friedrichshain.
5.
On 18 August 1964, Gunter Hildegard Trabant reported to his office that he had not seen his wife since 7:00 in the morning the day prior, 17 August, and that some of her clothes were missing.
6.
At 6:50 in the evening the same day, Hildegard Trabant was shot trying to cross the border between East Berlin and West Berlin.
7.
Hildegard Trabant had attempted to leave via a disused S-Bahn line between S-Bhf Berlin-Gesundbrunnen and S-Bhf Berlin-Schonhauser Allee, and had managed to overcome the inner wall, but was discovered by East German border guards as she was hiding behind some shrubs before reaching the other side.
8.
Hildegard Trabant ignored verbal challenges to come out from behind the shrubs and surrender.
9.
One of the guards fired a warning shot to get Hildegard Trabant to stop, but when she continued to run, a second shot was fired, hitting her in the back.
10.
Hildegard Trabant had no other known relatives in East Germany at the time of her death, as her mother was deceased, her father was in a nursing home in West Berlin, and her only other known relative, a Gunter Pohl, was in Marl-Drewer, North Rhine-Westphalia, in West Germany.
11.
Hildegard Trabant was one of only eight women killed at the Berlin wall, among the total of at least 140 victims, and one of only four women who attempted this crossing alone.
12.
Hildegard Trabant was buried on 23 September 1964 at the Frieden-Himmelfahrt Cemetery, north of Pankow, in Rosenthal.
13.
Hildegard Trabant's urn is still there, like all urns buried there, but it is under another grave number, and under another name on the tombstone.
14.
Unlike almost all other deaths at the Berlin Wall, Hildegard Trabant's death went totally unnoticed in West Berlin.