Heinz-Josef Große

Heinz-Josef Große was a 34-year-old East German (GDR) construction worker who was shot and killed on 29 March 1982 by GDR border guards on the Inner German border at Schifflersgrund, near Bad Sooden-Allendorf.

He had been working on the border fortifications, digging cable trenches with a backhoe loader, when he noticed that the border guards were absent and that he was apparently unobserved. He drove his backhoe loader across the control strip and anti-vehicle ditch adjoining the border fence, lifted the bucket of his backhoe loader, climbed up on it and jumped over the fence. About before he reached West German territory at the top of a short slope above the border fence, he was spotted by two East German border guards, who opened fire. He was struck by nine bullets fired from Kalashnikov rifles. Fatally wounded, he bled to death just inside GDR territory, while a West German border patrol – who saw the whole incident – stood by helplessly. In their subsequent report on the incident, the East German border guards stated that "the attempted breach of the border in the direction GDR-FRG was prevented by the use of firearms and the individual succumbed to fatal injuries."

The incident provoked controversy in West Germany and condemnation of the GDR's "order to shoot" policy. A memorial cross was erected on the West German side of the border by local members of the (West German) Christian Democratic Union on 17 June 1982. It was inscribed with the slogan Einigkeit - Recht - Freiheit ("Unity - Justice - Freedom"). Thereafter, on each anniversary of the shooting, up to 2,000 people at a time demonstrated against the division of Germany at the point overlooking where Große was shot. The event was closely monitored by the GDR's security forces, who photographed the participants. It was not without controversy of its own; some in the West criticised the protest as mere rhetoric.

The two border guards who shot Große were put on trial in 1996 in the district court of Mühlhausen. Aged 20 and 23 at the time of the shooting, the two former guards were convicted of joint homicide and given suspended sentences of one year and three months.

Following the fall of the GDR in 1989, a second wooden memorial cross was set up on the spot where Große died, just inside what was East German territory.