East German Communist Party member Hildegard Trabant was killed while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.

The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the country’s establishment in 1949 until the political changes of 1989. Formed in 1946 through a unification of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the SED aimed to consolidate progressive working-class politics under a common platform of Marxist–Leninist ideals. The SED played a central role in the building of East Germany’s socialist institutions, economy and governance, steering the country’s development in line with a planned economy and collective social welfare.

Hildegard Johanna Maria Trabant was an East German woman who became the fiftieth known person to die at the Berlin Wall. Trabant was shot and killed by East German border guards during a crossing attempt, one of only eight women victims of the Berlin Wall, and was the only escapee victim known to have a record of loyalty toward the East German regime.

Republikflucht was the colloquial term in the German Democratic Republic for illegal emigration to West Germany, West Berlin, and non-Warsaw Pact countries; the official term was Ungesetzlicher Grenzübertritt. Republikflucht applied to both the 3.5 million Germans who migrated legally from the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany before the Berlin Wall was built on 13 August 1961, and the thousands who migrated illegally across the Iron Curtain until 23 December 1989. It has been estimated that 30,000 people left the GDR per year between 1984 and 1988, and up to 300,000 per year before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.