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Subscribe to RSSBERLIN -- For 31 years, Rene Seiptius had been counted among the thousands of people killed while trying to escape the confines of communist East Germany.
As it turns out, he was alive all along.
"I can't explain how it could have happened," Seiptius told Reuters on Monday.
Seiptius first attempted to cross the deadly strip of land that once separated East Germany from the West in 1981, when he was 17.
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He and two friends managed to tiptoe past a row of minefields but they triggered fire from an automatic spring gun. One of Seiptius' crew died, and their cover was blown.
Plans to close a seniors' center in a building that was used by East Germany's Stasi spies during the Cold War have prompted its elderly patrons to take action: They've occupied the building. NBC News' Carlo Angerer reports from Berlin.
They were quickly arrested by border guards. But records kept by East Germany's notorious secret police, known as the Stasi, show Seiptius as having died during that botched escape attempt.
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"I've been alive for the last 48 years," he said.
Eventually his name found its way to a list of all the people who had died along Germany's East-West border compiled by a museum in Berlin.
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It was only the second case of an incorrect entry to have surfaced in the past half a century, said Alexandra Hildebrandt, the director of the Haus am Checkpoint Charlie museum, which keeps the tally of border victims. The other case came to light more than two decades ago.
'There was his name'
Hildebrandt said that although her organization spends months researching individual entries, even examining autopsy reports in some cases, the list is still a "work in progress."
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An archival look at the iconic barrier that became a symbol of the broader Cold War conflict.
"It's not always that easy to get access to this information," she said. "Former employees of the secret police still control a lot of it."
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Seiptius tried two more times, unsuccessfully, to escape East Germany until he was granted permission to leave. Today, he lives near the western German city of Mainz.
The case was not made public until recently, when Seiptius' ex-wife stumbled across an article on the website of the German broadcaster NDR, which listed Seiptius as deceased.
Using a scraper, nail-polish remover and a camera, 66-year-old Irmela Mensah-Schramm is tackling neo-Nazi hate in Berlin. The retired special-needs teacher has removed more than 90,000 hateful stickers and graffiti.
"It was pure coincidence," said Patricia Seiptius. "I was looking for something online and one of the search results was this article, I looked at it and there was his name.
"I couldn't believe it."
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Leave a Comment:
Looks like msnbc is just as bad as the Stasi when it comes to getting their stories straight.
Yes, Like anything else, always check other sources, then check again if you want to get anything right..
..and how annoying is it to have 2 completely unrelated videos inserted in the middle of the story?
Taxes??!! I don't pay taxes, pal; I've been dead a long time. Says so right here.
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The Berlin wall concept should be used at our border with Mexico.
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Yes, nothing new here. We should adopt the tactics of a brutal communist regime.
True Story:
I lived 1 mile from the East German border for 2-3 years as a teenager. We would ocassionally hear gunshots and wonder if it was from the local shooting range or if someone was trying to escape.
I was home the night a man tried to escape. He'd gotten past the land mines, the motion-detected machine guns and was discovered as he was climbing the barbwire-topped fence(chain link). When he was shot by the East German guards, he fell badly wounded OVER the fence, onto the west side. Unfortunately, the fence is about 10 ft. back from the border, so even though he landed on West Germany's side of the fence, he was still 10 ft. from the official border and too wounded to crawl.
It became a multi-hour standoff. At daylight, people from surrounding towns flocked to the area. The police held them back where they were safe, but everyone could still see across the field what was happening. Any time soldiers, police or medics tried to approach the man, the East German guards raised their guns.
After a number of hours, the East German guards just turned and left.
The man was still alive and recovered from the ordeal. I'll never forget that experience (1986).
I don't know why the man escaped. Maybe he wanted work. Maybe he'd spent 5 years in prison for speaking out about the government. Maybe he sought religious freedom. I never found out, because we moved shortly thereafter back to the US.
How someone could wish for a border like this is beyond me, but it won't stop the desperate from trying.
Yes, something must be done to stem the numbers crossing our borders illegally. A border like this isn't the right answer.
We can't teach landmines the difference between a criminal and a person escaping abuse or religious/political persecution.
Find another solution - this one's barbaric.
Three ID's one dead, desk paper shuffle. Simple who was murdered, and who was third.
Beyond that it is a reminder, that humans are often detached from normal feelings, but its not attributed to mental disorder (we are too kind).
We can see the first "freedom six" above, but where would we look except newsvine. The flys of death arrive to multiply in the remains, but they are always hiding behind their inability to feel anything, human in form only, alien in every way. The best can we do is to be wary, since we too may have to become monsters to allow them to succeed.
Huh?
Wren - Exactly!!! That was some serious incoherent babbling!
Update: (Missing if, of, is, it, that, the).
If this were a case of mistaken identity then how is it that the only one of the three was identified?
With three ID's were available (at the arrest), one person was dead, so it easy to conceive that a "desk paper shuffle" would lead have to the original confusion. Simple enough which one was murdered (buried etc.) and who was third person involved? (A complete story would account for all three. It's just obvious.)
Beyond, the original story, it is a reminder that (Newsvine) humans are often detached from normal feelings, but we are too kind to attribute this to a mental disorder, but is just the psychology of not having feedback on demented comments
We can see the first comments, the "freedom six" above, (the first six comments), but where would we look except Newsvine to see demented comments? The "flies of death" arrive to multiply and feed the decaying remains of those have been murdered by human monsters". But such monsters are always hiding behind their inability to feel anything; they are human in form only, alien in every other way.
The best can we do is to be wary of such monsters, since we too may have to become monsters to allow them to succeed or even prevent them from succeeding.
Howmanyfingers, Back East, Sandungo, stone-pipe, bobmck-751368 and nothing new here-1200374; all commented as if there were all members of fascist organizations.