Kurt Lichtenstein

At the end of 1936 Lichtenstein went to Spain as an International Brigade volunteer, serving the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Until 1937 he served in the Thalmann Battalion as a Political Commissar. At times he was involved as a journalist in the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain. In this capacity he acted as the editor of the German edition of the International Brigade newspaper, Volontaire de la Liberté. He also worked for a Republican radio station. During the Battle of Ebro in 1938, as a member of a machine gun unit, he was wounded. In the final phase of the war he was demoted for cowardice before the enemy for his involvement in a withdrawal. After the Spanish Civil War, Lichtenstein fled to France. Due to the Second World War, the French state interned Lichtenstein in southern France in 1939 as an enemy alien. Fearing that the Vichy government would hand control of the camps to the Gestapo, Lichtenstein fled. On Communist Party instructions he joined the French Resistance in Toulouse. Also on Communist Party orders, Lichtenstein became a foreign worker in France, working using a false identity in a defense industry in Thuringia. In 1945 he was handed over to French forces and interned as a suspected Nazi. The French Communist Party intervened to free him, and he returned to Germany.

After the Second World War Lichtenstein worked in the Ruhr for the Communist Party. He was a journalist for several communist-oriented newspapers. He also edited the Neuen Volkszeitung (New People's Daily). Between 1947 and 1950 he was a Communist Party member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. During inner-party purges in 1950, he was associated with the disgrace and fall of Kurt Müller. In 1953 Lichtenstein was expelled for anti-party activities and dismissed as chief editor of the Neuen Volkszeitung. For several years he worked odd jobs. He joined the German Socialist Party (SPD). In 1958 he received a journalistic appointment to the SPD-oriented Westfälische Rundschau which appeared in Dortmund.

The Lichtenstein border incident occurred during a period of high Cold War tension. The death was used politically by Western and Eastern powers. In the West, press and government reacted with outrage and disgust, and Lichtenstein was converted into a martyr. For the East this appeared to be a provoking border incident. The Socialist Unity Party (SED) central newspaper Neues Deutschland (New Germany) carried the headline, "Provocateur violates the state border of the GDR."

Despite eyewitness accounts of the incident from both East and West Germans, rumors abounded that Lichtenstein had been killed for other reasons. Alternate theories of Lichtenstein's death have focused on his earlier political work with and his departure from the German Communist Party.

In late 1961, a memorial was erected to Lichtenstein near the place of his death. The memorial consisted of a cross and an explanatory sign that read "Ein Deutscher, von Deutschen erschossen Kurt Lichtenstein † 12.10.1961" (A German, shot dead by Germans, Kurt Lichtenstein 12.10.1961) The memorial became a place of political demonstration. Other signs were erected on the site, with messages that framed the shooting as a deliberate murder. In 1962, the memorial was the site of a large demonstration.

The incident was revisited in the 1990s, and the border guard who had shot Lichtenstein stood trial for homicide. In 1997, the shooter was acquitted on the grounds that he was following orders and had no intent to kill.