Murder at the Berlin Wall

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On 29 March 1974, Czesław Kukuczka stormed into the Polish embassy in East Berlin, threatening to detonate a bomb unless he was allowed to escape to the West.

Shot at point-blank range while trying to cross the Berlin Wall, the identity of Kukuczka's killer remained a mystery for decades - until archive documents led investigators to former Stasi officer Martin Naumann.

Naumann's historic trial made him one of the first former Stasi officers to be convicted of murder.

Dan Hardoon speaks to Dr Filip Gańczak, the historian whose work helped bring Kukuczka’s killer to justice.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: The Berlin Wall. Credit: Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	11 climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2.
0:06.4	It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history.
0:09.9	Rock falls, avalanches.
0:11.6	Huge pieces of ice.
0:12.9	All are big enough to kill you.
0:14.3	He just flew out into Devoid, and he was gone.
0:17.3	How did it all go so wrong?
0:19.2	And is it really worth risking death to feel alive?
0:22.3	Why would somebody pay to go to a place called the death zone on vacation?
0:27.3	Extreme. Peak Danger.
0:29.3	With me, Natalia Melman Petrazella.
0:31.7	Listen to the full series now.
0:33.3	First on BBC Sounds.
0:39.8	You're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Dan
0:45.5	Hardoon.
0:46.9	I'm taking you back to 1970s Berlin.
0:51.0	It's a city divided between communist east and democratic west.
0:56.1	This is the story of one man's extraordinary attempt to gain his freedom
1:00.3	by crossing the Berlin Wall in the most daring way imaginable.
1:06.4	He had a suitcase with him and some wires were just popping out of it.
1:11.6	So that was a hint that he might have actually had some explosive materials.
1:17.3	The man is Cheswav Kukuchka, a 38-year-old Polish national.
	...

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