Rudi Arnstadt (3 September 1926 – 14 August 1962) was an East German border guard who died in an incident with West German border guards at the Inner German border on 14 August 1962. Arnstadt, a captain of the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic, was shot and killed by Bundesgrenzschutz officer Hans Plüschke near Wiesenfeld during a shootout that occurred under unknown circumstances. Arnstadt's death caused an escalation of Cold War tensions. In 1998, Hans Plüschke was found murdered near Wiesenfeld under similar circumstances to Arnstadt, leading to conspiracy theories in Germany. Border guard service In June 1949, Arnstadt registered for service with the Volkspolizei, the police force of the Soviet Occupation Zone, becoming an Anwärter der VP (police cadet) with the Kasernierte Volkspolizei in Gotha. In March 1950, Arnstadt was appointed to the German Border Police (Deutsche Grenzpolizei) in Dermbach, patrolling the Inner German border with West Germany. In 1952, Arnstadt failed his first attempt to become an officer at the police school in Sondershausen. In 1953, his marriage ended in divorce, with his two children Veronika and Uwe staying with the mother, and remarried shortly after. In 1954, Arnstadt passed his officer training at Sondershausen and was appointed the rank of Unterleutnant, and the following year was promoted to lieutenant. Arnstadt functioned as a recruiter for the German Border Police until 1957 when he was appointed as a company commander of the 6th border company in Dermbach. Arnstadt was responsible for a section of the border at Wiesenfeld, a region of Bezirk Suhl in the Rhön Mountains at the westernmost point of the Warsaw Pact. Arnstadt's section contained the highly-strategic Fulda Gap, which aroused the special interest of NATO, and a short distance from the US Army's Observation Post Alpha. Arnstadt moved with his wife to Wiesenfeld and in April 1957 became an unofficial collaborator (Geheimer Informator) of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) until this relationship was ended fourteen months later. In 1961, the German Border Police was reformed into the Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic (Grenztruppen der DDR) and became a service branch of the National People's Army (Nationale Volksarmee, NVA), the armed forces of East Germany. Arnstadt and his wife moved into a new house in Wiesenfeld whose owner had been recently expelled by Aktion Kornblume (Operation Cornflower), a large-scale operation of the East German government to expel "politically unreliable" people