The 20-year-old carpenter Michael Schmidt is shot dead by GDR border soldiers while trying to escape at the Berlin sector border. The two soldiers who delivered the fatal shots are commended; only the large consumption of ammunition (50 shots) is criticised. Each of the two border soldiers receives a reward of 200 marks and a medal for exemplary border service.more
Forty GDR citizens who want to migrate and have sought refuge in the West German embassy in Prague go on hunger strike. After they are promised a favourable review of their applications for departure, they return to the GDR in January 1985.
RIAS report on the hunger strike of the GDR refugees in the Prague embassy, 14 December 1984 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Rundschau am Mittag, Moderator/Reporter: Wolf-Dieter Roeske, Jürgen Koar)
