Editing Checkpoint Charlie (section)

===Death of Peter Fechter===
[[File:Body of Peter Fechter lying next to Berlin Wall.jpg|thumb|Fechter's body lying next to the [[Berlin Wall]] after being shot in 1962 while trying to escape to the West]]

On 17 August 1962, a teenaged East German, [[Peter Fechter]], was shot in the pelvis by East German guards while trying to escape from East Berlin. His body lay tangled in a barbed wire fence as he bled to death in full view of the world's media. He could not be rescued from West Berlin because he was a few metres inside the Soviet sector. East German border guards were reluctant to approach him for fear of provoking Western soldiers, one of whom had shot an East German border guard just days earlier. More than an hour later, Fechter's body was removed by the East German guards. A spontaneous demonstration formed on the American side of the checkpoint, protesting against the action of the East and the inaction of the West.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Media battle ensues following the death of Peter Fechter |url=https://www.axelspringer.com/en/inside/media-battle-ensues-following-the-death-of-peter-fechter |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=www.axelspringer.com |language=en-GB}}</ref>

A few days later, a crowd threw stones at Soviet buses driving towards the [[Soviet War Memorial (Tiergarten)|Soviet War Memorial]], located in the [[Großer Tiergarten|Tiergarten]] in the British sector; the Soviets tried to escort the buses with [[armoured personnel carrier]]s (APCs). Thereafter, the Soviets were only allowed to cross via the Sandkrug Bridge crossing (which was the nearest to Tiergarten) and were prohibited from bringing APCs. Western units were deployed in the middle of the night in early September with live armaments and vehicles, in order to enforce the ban.{{Citation needed|date=July 2015}}