Former East German leader Erich Honecker took responsibility for the Berlin Wall shootings at his trial Thursday but rejected guilt, saying the Wall prevented a nuclear war between the superpowers.
"Nobody in (unified Germany) has the right . . . to charge me, let alone sentence me, for things I did to fulfill my responsibilities to the East German state," Honecker, 80, said in a 26-page statement he read to the court in a quavering but defiant voice.Honecker, who suffers from cancer of the liver, added that in any case, he would not live long enough to see the end of his trial, which is set to last until April.
"I bear the main political responsibility . . . for the fact that people trying to cross the border without authorization were shot," the former hard-line communist leader told a packed court.
Honecker and three other former top East German officials are on trial, charged with 13 counts of manslaughter for allegedly ordering border guards to "shoot-to-kill" fugitives from the communist state.
About 350 people were killed trying to escape to the West from East Germany between Aug. 13, 1961, when the Berlin Wall was built, and Nov. 9, 1989, when it was opened.
"Without the wall through Berlin there could have been a nuclear war with thousands or millions of dead," Honecker said.
He pointed out that the Wall was built at a time when East Germany lost millions of workers who immigrated to West Germany. If the steel and concrete barrier had not been built, he said, the Soviet Union would have been certain to intervene, as it did in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
"This was not a decision taken lightly," Honecker said adding, "Not only did the Wall divide families but it was also a sign of the political and economic weakness of the Warsaw Pact compared to NATO."
Honecker said other world leaders who ordered controversial military actions that resulted in deaths were not tried.
He mentioned U.S. President John F. Kennedy's decision to send troops to Vietnam and President George Bush's military operation in Panama to capture Gen. Manuel Noriega.