Today in history On August 17, 1962 – Peter Fechter is shot and bleeds to death while trying to cross the new Berlin Wall.

In 1962, one of the most harrowing incidents of the Cold War occurred when 18-year-old Peter Fechter attempted to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin by crossing the newly erected Berlin Wall. Along with his friend, Fechter tried to scale the wall near Checkpoint Charlie.

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While his companion managed to cross successfully, Fechter was shot by East German border guards and fell into the so-called "death strip", a heavily guarded, barren zone between the two walls. Wounded and unable to move, he lay in full view of both sides, crying for help as he bled. Neither the East German guards nor Western soldiers intervened immediately, each side restrained by political tensions and fear of escalation.

For nearly an hour, Fechter lay on the ground, becoming a symbol of the brutality of the Berlin Wall and the oppressive East German regime. His death sparked outrage across the world, as Western spectators watched helplessly while he slowly bled to death.

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Eventually, East German guards retrieved his lifeless body, but the images and reports of his suffering intensified criticism of the wall and deepened the divide between East and West. Peter Fechter’s tragic end made him one of the first and most famous victims of the Berlin Wall, and his death came to represent the human cost of political division and the struggle for freedom in a divided Germany.