Peter Schulthauer

I still remember the sound. A dull crack in the cold night air, then silence. No shouting, no cries—just the weight of it sinking into my bones. It’s been almost forty years, and yet I hear it most nights when I close my eyes.

I was a border guard in the GDR, stationed at the Berlin Wall. In 1985, I followed an order, pulled a trigger, and ended a life. I don’t even know his name. Maybe I never wanted to. Back then, I told myself he was a traitor, a criminal. That was easier to believe. But after the Wall fell, everything unraveled. I saw the footage, the celebrations, the people embracing. And I realized—I had been nothing more than a cog in a machine that devoured lives.

Guilt is a strange thing. It doesn’t hit you all at once. It seeps in, slow and relentless. My children turned away from me when they learned about my past. I turned to alcohol. I thought I would drink myself into oblivion, but somehow, I crawled back. Therapy helped. So did time. And, in the end, so did my children. They let me back into their lives, though the shadow of my past still lingers between us.

Now I am 82. I live in Magdeburg, Germany, in a small apartment with a view of the park. It’s quiet here, and I have made peace with solitude. I have three grandchildren. The youngest, Anton, visited me last week. He’s nine, sharp as a knife. “Opa, what did you do in the GDR?” he asked, eyes full of curiosity. I told him the truth—at least, a version of it. I told him I had been a soldier, that I had followed orders I no longer agreed with. I left out the rest. He’s not ready for that. Not yet.

But if I live long enough, I’ll tell him everything.