Border guards in East Germany during the Cold War were given clear orders to shoot at attempted defectors, including children, BBC reported, citing a senior official.

A newly discovered order is the firmest evidence yet that the communist regime gave explicit shoot-to-kill orders, says Germany's director of Stasi files.

The Stasi was the security ministry of the East German government, which always denied there was such a policy.
The order "is a licence to kill", said the head of a Stasi victims' memorial.

Hubertus Knabe called for a criminal investigation and possible murder charges to be brought against whoever drew up the order, saying nearly all the Stasi's 91,000 former employees had gone "practically unpunished".

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