Death in the woods

July 6, 2023

Military roads don't need the best surfaces, and their state has deteriorated in the subsequent decades

ARDENSEE - It takes some finding but the memorial shows that Bernhard Simon lives on. In memory, anyway.

It's not easy to find where he fell, but then he didn't want to be found at all.

The border fence was more complicated than the words themselves suggest. For a start, there were two fences. Guns pointed along their line, triggered by a beam. Mines lay beyond that, and a ditch to stop drivers crashing across. Those constant additions persuaded most people that the line couldn't be crossed.

The DDR denied for years that automated guns lined the border. But the evidence was there.

Bernhard thought otherwise, or at least that it was worth trying. He wanted to join his father, who had moved to what became the west after he and his wife - Bernard's mother - divorced.

His brother, Siegfried, joined him with the added incentive of being about to be conscripted into the army. Together, at home in Leipzig, they looked at maps and decided where would be best.

They chose the night of 28 October, 1963. The time: 11pm.

It's not hard to imagine the terror and excitement they felt as they scaled the first fence. There was no reaction from the guards. Perhaps the plan would work. But then Bernhard stepped on a mine.

A lonely cross in the woods to mark just another of those who crossed the border and died

Blood poured from his wounds but he and Siegfried struggled on regardless. But it was too much. Siegfried left his brother in the forest and went for help. He found it but by then time had passed and, in shock and in darkness, he couldn't find the path to his brother.

Bernhard died from his loss of blood. An ambulance was taking him to hospital but it was too late.

There are no signposts to his cross. You have to guess and then follow a likely, narrow trail through the trees that have grown there since. The first sign is the typewritten reports of the incident that have been saved and pinned to posts.

We were close to giving up. East Germany allowed only its own vehicles near the border. Military vehicles don't need smooth surfaces and so we bumped along the characteristic concrete slabs. The first kilometre doubled back from the road we'd been following and brought us to a sandy clearing with a single border post.

A second road ran across it at right angles, close to the line of the fence. We followed it to the left. Only Steph's good guesswork and a hint of something in the distance led us to the spot.

Bernhard Simon was one of many who died at the border. Other than to those who loved or knew him, his death was neither more nor less remarkable than any other. Except for the pathos of his lonely cross in the woods.

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