  The former leadership of the DDR was tried in courts in West Berlin. Areas of investigation by the new authorities included: commanders responsible for the DDR's border policy (“shoot to kill”), election fraud at various levels of governance, and charges of corruption, embezzlement, and “misuse of public funds” (Blankenburg 1995). The prosecution took on a hybrid form: the suspects had to be tried according to the criminal law of East Germany (which West German jurists considered an Unrechtsstaat) but with the procedures of West German courts. The intent was to criminalize the Communist regime by treating and prosecuting its leadership according to the rules of an ordinary West German criminal trial.