Researchers have discovered a Cold War “shoot-to-kill” order in what amounts to the clearest evidence yet that East German troops were given a licence to fire on people fleeing to the West, the Times of London reported.
The written order, issued to Stasi secret service agents, states: “Don't hesitate to use your weapon even when border breaches happen with women and children, which traitors have often exploited in the past.”
It was found by a researcher in a regional archive of Stasi documents in the city of Magdeburg. The existence of a shoot-to-kill policy has long been assumed, given that more than 1,100 people were killed trying to flee East Germany. Most were shot trying to cross the Berlin Wall and the border between East and West Germany between 1961, when the frontier was sealed with the construction of the Wall, and November 1989, when it fell.
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