Chris Gueffroy was the last person to be shot and the second-last to die in an escape attempt while trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin across the Berlin Wall.
Chris Gueffroy, at the Window of Remembrance, Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße
Südostallee 218, Johannisthal, Treptow, East Berlin. Last residence of Berlin Wall victim Chris Gueffroy.
Close-up of Chris Gueffroy's grave, April 2014, at the Baumschulenweg Friedhof/Neuer Städtischer Friedhof in Berlin-Treptow
Commemorative tablet to Chris Gueffroy. In the background is the partly destroyed Wall, near Reichstag. Winter 1989/90.
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic. Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.
From the West Berlin side, Berlin Wall graffiti art in 1986. The Wall's "death strip", on the east side of the Wall, here follows the curve of the Luisenstadt Canal (filled in 1932).
East German Combat Groups of the Working Class close the border on 13 August 1961 in preparation for the Berlin Wall construction.
East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961
US President John F. Kennedy visiting the Berlin Wall on 26 June 1963
