Game Seeks to Foster Remembrance of Berlin Wall Deaths

The Berlin Wall and its effects are something that the majority of people today barely even think about. It stood as a physical and psychological divide between communism and capitalism and the unification in 1989 is still very much part of German social make-up, with the 20th anniversary of its fall just past.

To reflect this, a student in Karlsruhe, Germany has created a game where you act as an East German prison guard who, over the course of the wall’s life, had a shoot-to-kill policy for anyone who tried to escape to the West. It’s reckoned around 1,000 people died while trying to get past the wall.

Called 1378 (km) (the length of the East-West German border), the game’s objective is to shoot the fleeing East Germans before they get to the West. It may sound brutal, because it’s meant to be. The creator, 24 year-old Jens Stober, says that it’s supposed to be a history lesson and thinks that “particularly among young people, that part of history is no longer really debated and has been forgotten.”

“Being young, too, I myself didn’t know much about the border fortifications either. Many of my peers have no idea that the inner-German border was 1378 kilometers long. They’ve only heard about the Berlin Wall, but that was only a small part of the border. So I wanted to bring the big picture back to young people’s minds,” he said.

If, in the game, you kill three escapees, you’re fast forwarded to a year 2000 where you’re on trial for killing their murders – something that really happened to some of the guards. “By then it should have dawned on every gamer that this is not your regular first-person shooter, but it’s something very different,” said Stober

Many people have been upset by the game, saying that is disrespects the families of the people who actually did die at the Berlin Wall. It was even pushed back as it was due to be released on October 3rd, the anniversary of German unification. Crucially, however, Stober notes that “you are only able to win 1378(km) when you do not shoot.”

Which I think is actually very poignant.

via: Read Write Web