Stasi shoot to kill order discovered.

A document has been uncovered in Stasi archives in East Germany that proves for the first time that border guards had a clear shoot-to-kill order. The seven-page order, dated October 1, 1973 was found last week in the regional archive office in the eastern city of Magdeburg. It shows that the Ministry for State Security (aka the Stasi) had told guards that they must "stop or liquidate" would-be dissidents."Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used," it said.

The director of the government office that manages the thousands of Stasi files still in existence said the document offered iron-clad evidence that the top echelon of the regime expected that anyone trying to escape to the West should be killed. "The document is so important because the political leaders of the time continue to deny there was an order to shoot," Marianne Birthler told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

The orders were issued to a special Stasi unit which was posted alongside regular East German border guards in the Magdeburg region. Its job was to stop escape attempts by guards, who sometimes tried to flee with their families. It is believed that more than 2,800 East German soldiers crossed the border into the West. The unit was disbanded in 1985, four years before the Berlin Wall fell.

East Germany had a shoot to kill policy which led to the murder of hundreds (if not thousands) of people. It is inconceivable that an order from on high would not have existed so its discovery comes as no surprise. That doesn’t mean I don’t find it appalling...