Hildegard Trabant

Hildegard Johanna Maria Trabant (; 12 June 1927 – 18 August 1964) was an East German woman who became the fiftieth known person to die at the Berlin Wall. Trabant was shot and killed by East German border guards during a crossing attempt, one of only eight women victims of the Berlin Wall, and was the only escapee victim known to have a record of loyalty toward the East German regime.

Biography

Richard-Sorge-Straße 64, in Berlin. This is the front door to the former residence of Hildegard Trabant, in Berlin-Friedrichshain, taken in 2014 Hildegard Trabant's grave at the Friedhof Nordend, in Berlin-Rosenthal. Marked as UH Him – B102, taken in 2014 Map of the Friedhof Nordend, in Berlin-Rosenthal. The location of Hildegard Trabant's grave is highlighted in yellow.

Hildegard Pohl was born on 12 June 1927 in Berlin, Weimar Republic, and grew up in the city. She was loyal to the East German regime, having joined the governing Socialist Unity Party in 1949 at the age of 22, where she was valued as an active party member. In 1954, she married Günter Horst Trabant, a People's Police officer who was employed in the passport and registration division; the couple had no children due to a lower abdomen operation that rendered Hildegard unable to bear children. The Trabants lived in an apartment complex on Tilsiter Straße 64 (now Richard-Sorge-Straße), in the Friedrichshain district of East Berlin, near U-Bahnhof Frankfurter Tor, as well as U-Bahnhof Weberweise. Possibly facilitating their residence there, Trabant was a property manager in the Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltung Friedrichshain, a municipal housing administration in Friedrichshain.

Death On 18 August 1964, Günter Trabant reported to his office that he had not seen his wife since 7:00 in the morning the day prior, 17 August, and that some of her clothes were missing.

In the presence of his superiors, as well as in the presence of the Stasi case worker, Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant) Horst Hase, her husband Günter was either unable or unwilling to comment on circumstances which led to her attempted flight from East Germany. It is unknown why Trabant decided to flee East Germany. Evidence suggests her motives may have been of a personal nature, possibly involving domestic violence. The Trabants were known to have had several major domestic clashes, which caught the attention of Günter's supervisors within the police force. Hildegard had no other known relatives in East Germany at the time of her death, as her mother was deceased, her father was in a nursing home in West Berlin, and her only other known relative, a Günter Pohl, was in Marl-Drewer, North Rhine-Westphalia, in West Germany.

Hildegard Trabant was one of only eight women killed at the Berlin wall, among the total of at least 140 victims, and one of only four women who attempted this crossing alone. Further, of the at least 101 Berlin Wall victims that were classified as escapees or attempted escapees, she was the only one who had a record of loyalty toward the East German regime.

Burial Hildegard Trabant was buried on 23 September 1964 at the Frieden-Himmelfahrt Cemetery (now the Evangelischer Friedhof Nordend), north of Pankow, in Rosenthal. Also unlike almost all other deaths at the Berlin Wall, it was obvious that when she was actually shot she had abandoned her attempt to escape East Berlin, and was merely fleeing back towards the inner wall to avoid arrest.