Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

Sources and method

A Berlin Experiences project

This site collects escapes across the Berlin Wall between 13 August 1961 and 9 November 1989. It covers the Wall around West Berlin: the inner-city border between East and West Berlin, the outer ring between West Berlin and the GDR, and the border crossings. Escapes across the inner-German border elsewhere, or across the Baltic Sea, are outside its scope.

How each story is checked

Every story is written from published sources, which are listed at the foot of each page. We favour the historians’ record: the Chronik der Mauer, run by the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio, and the Berlin Wall Foundation (Stiftung Berliner Mauer). Press and museum sources fill in detail. Where sources disagree about a date, a number or a place, the story says so in a note rather than choosing silently.

Pins are placed at the documented address or crossing point. Where only the area is known, the pin has a dashed outline and the page says the position is approximate.

What this collection is not

It is not a complete list. Around 5,000 people are thought to have escaped into West Berlin while the Wall stood, most of them without leaving a record. This collection documents the events that are well sourced, and it grows as more are verified. At least 140 people were killed at the Wall or died in connection with the border regime; the Chronik der Mauer keeps a biography of each of them.

Sources cited most often

Further reading

Images

Photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are in the public domain or under Creative Commons licences that allow reuse with credit. Each licence was checked against the Commons record before the image was added, and every image carries its credit. Where a story has no free photograph of the event itself, we show the place or its memorial and say so in the caption. The full list is on the image credits page.

Corrections and additions

If you can correct or add to a story, or know of an escape that is missing, get in touch. We add new stories once we can check them against a published source.

Map data

The route of the Wall comes from the Geoportal Berlin dataset “Verlauf der Berliner Mauer, 1989”, traced from aerial photographs taken on 25 April 1989 (Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, Bauen und Wohnen; licence dl-de/zero-2.0). Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors.