The debate about the GDR Order to Fire

The journalist Laura del Río comments on the impact of the Stasi document's publication. "Its discovery is on the front page of all the German papers because until now public opinion in the Federal State had no idea that such an order could exist in writing. It allows the corroboration of what experts and detractors of the GDR have been accusing the former leaders of for decades: the fact that the regime was without pity in its efforts to stop people moving to the West. The order to shoot did indeed feature in documents previously known, but only as a last resort. According to procedure a bullet was to be fired into the air before shouting 'don't move' and finally, if the fugitive refused to obey, he was to be shot in the legs. But this was forbidden when there were women and children. Hence the impact of the new paragraph [contained in the Stasi document]."

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