Between Propaganda and Remembrance: Reinhold Huhn, Egon Schultz, and the Question of Justice

Between 1948 and 1989, eight East German border guards lost their lives while on duty. In the GDR, they were elevated to the status of heroes, with streets named after them and their deaths portrayed as deliberate acts of murder. Among them were Reinhold Huhn (1942–1962) and Egon Schultz (1943–1964).

Yet both cases are more complex than GDR propaganda suggested. In this lecture, Dietmar Arnold, Chair of Berliner Unterwelten e.V., places the events in their historical context, examining the street namings of 1966 as well as the renamings that followed German reunification.