A BURST of rifle fire and a man sprawled inches from a wall near Belmarsh prison in southeast London yesterday marked the 45th anniversary of the death of Peter Fechter, 18, the first person killed trying to escape over the Berlin Wall.

The shooting was recreated as a performance art event in front of an audience of 70 people, who had been asked to board coaches to an unspecified destination.

It was staged with a £10,000 grant from the Arts Council by the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), an organisation known for an approach to culture that some call avant-garde but others have called bonkers.

East Germany’s Stasi secret police had a shoot-to-kill policy for people fleeing to freedom in the West. At least 133 were shot dead trying to escape. Some estimates put the number as high as 1,000. The Stasi often lied to the victims’ families about the cause of death of their loved ones.

Fechter was shot on August 17, 1962 and left for an hour to bleed to death.

The infamous scene around the wall was reconstructed with actors playing Fechter, his friend Helmut Kulbeik, who escaped, and the border guards from East Germany and the American sector of west Berlin (see image 1, right).

The event was staged 400 yards from Belmarsh prison, which has been “home” to Ronnie Biggs, the great train robber, and Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer.

“Peter Fechter was an enforced political prisoner,” said S Mark Gubb, the artist who staged the recreation. “He had done nothing wrong, whereas those in Belmarsh are imprisoned for justifiable reasons.”

The reenactment involved real AK47s shooting blanks - for which special licences had to be obtained - and guards wearing the uniforms of 1962. The event lasted just over an hour - the same time it took Fechter to be shot, lie mortally wounded and for his body to be taken away. Those who came to watch were encouraged to act as Berlin citizens of the day on both sides of the divide.

The ICA argues that the reenactment is a metaphor for today’s forced migration of many thousands of people due to economic, political and civil unrest.

The crowd of visitors included some who, somewhat incongruously, had bought lunch hampers and drink.

“Peter Fechter is well remembered in Berlin,” said Markus Hesselmann, who has lived in Berlin since 1988 and witnessed yesterday’s reenactment. “The photo of his body being taken away [see image 2, right] is one of the most iconic of the divided Berlin.”

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