All escapes
574 events from August 1961 to 1989, in date order. Filter the list and the map together.
574 of 574 escapes
The Wall, as surveyed in April 1989 Dashed pin border: location approximate Several escapes at one spot: click or press Enter for the list
August 1961
A border policeman steals patrol boat G-65 on the Havel
When the boatman left the boat for a short time, a soldier of the Groß Glienicke border unit deserted in the patrol boat G-65, taking a carbine, a machine pistol and a flare pistol with him.
August 1961
Rita Bergemann and Michael Reck swim the Havel from Sacrow
A good two weeks after the Wall went up, a young Potsdam couple swam roughly 300 metres across the narrowest part of the Havel from Sacrow to Moorlake, just as a patrol boat turned away.
August 1961
Peter Mindorf flees from his post in Klein Glienicke
An Oberwachtmeister of the Potsdam riot-police training unit, on guard in Klein Glienicke, used a toilet break to flee with his submachine gun and 80 rounds.
August 1961
A hairdresser cuts the wire at the Kiefholzstraße allotments for his daughter
When the border closed, a hairdresser who had fled in 1958 cut the new wire at his allotment so that his married daughter could crawl across, and then kept cutting holes for others.
13 August 1961
Through the graveyard and the church gate: Hildegard K. and her son
On the night the border closed, a radio singer and her eldest son crept through back yards and the Elisabeth cemetery to the Reconciliation Church, whose gate to West Berlin was still open.
13 August 1961
A VW Beetle races through the barbed wire at Ackerstraße
On the day the border was sealed, a Beetle from East Berlin drove at full speed through the single roll of barbed wire across Ackerstraße.
13 August 1961
Wire cutters at the Ebertstraße fence on the first day
On the Sunday the border was sealed, a crowd of East Berliners at the new fence in Ebertstraße cut through the wire when the guards were not looking. Some ran across to West Berlin before the fence was closed again.
13 August 1961
An inflatable dinghy across the Britzer Zweigkanal
On the afternoon of 13 August 1961 two young people crossed the Britzer Zweigkanal in Johannisthal in an inflatable dinghy. About twenty minutes later a third youth swam across at the same spot.
13 August 1961
Manfred Wenzel swims the Teltow Canal on the first evening
On the evening the border was sealed, a father slid into the Teltow Canal at Johannisthal and swam to Rudow with a briefcase in one hand. His wife and children followed a year later in an escape helper's car.
13 August 1961
Manfred Roseneit leaves his scooter at the Kiefholzstraße fence
Turned back at the Dammweg after going home for his papers, and filmed by the Abendschau behind the wire, a 22-year-old radio mechanic found a gap in the mesh fence between the Kiefholzstraße allotments the same day.
13 August 1961
Helga W. gets through during the identity check at Lohmühlenstraße
In a report logged at 5.30 a.m. on 13 August 1961 the Treptow police recorded that Helga W., born in 1939, had got into West Berlin during the identity-card check at the Lohmühlenstraße crossing; her identity card stayed with the police.
13 August 1961
A young girl undresses and swims the Flutgraben
At about 10 a.m. on 13 August 1961 a young girl undressed to her underwear at the Flutgraben near Lohmühlenstraße, jumped in and swam to West Berlin, where the crowd there 'received' her.
13 August 1961
Three youths swim the Landwehrkanal in their clothes
At 1.30 p.m. on 13 August 1961 three youths swam fully clothed across the Landwehrkanal from Lohmühlenstraße to West Berlin.
13 August 1961
A family walks out at the Heidekampweg before the fence goes up
At 10.30 a.m. on 13 August 1961 a man, a woman and a child left East Berlin over the Heidekampweg, where no barrier had yet been built.
13 August 1961
Over the sports ground in Dresdner Straße with a child and a suitcase
On 13 August 1961 a woman with a child and a suitcase left for West Berlin across the sports ground in Dresdner Straße.
13 August 1961 – 14 August 1961
The same car carries two people through Heinrich-Heine-Straße in its boot
On the evening of 13 August and the morning of 14 August 1961 the same car twice carried an East Berliner through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing hidden in its boot.
13 August 1961
About eighteen people cross the Teltow Canal on the first evening
On 13 August 1961 about eighteen people left East Berlin across the Teltow Canal between the Massante and Wrede bridges. The police saw young people swimming across, some using air mattresses, while about 400 West Berliners gathered on the far bank.
14 August 1961
The works locomotive that stopped on the line
On 14 August 1961 the driver of a works locomotive at VEB Bergmann-Borsig drove out of the plant towards Wilhelmsruh, stopped on the line and got away to West Berlin.
14 August 1961
Dr. G. rides an ambulance through the Brunnenstraße crossing and stays in the West
In the first night after the border was sealed, a doctor accompanying an ambulance from East to West Berlin through the Brunnenstraße crossing did not go back.
14 August 1961
Peter Hohmann sprints past the guards at Brunnenstraße
A waiter who had gone back East on the night the border closed tried the Sophien cemetery the next day, then slipped past the first soldiers in Brunnenstraße and ran when the guard holding his identity card chased another refugee.
15 August 1961
Conrad Schumann's leap to freedom
Two days after the border was sealed, 19-year-old border policeman Conrad Schumann jumped over the barbed-wire barrier at Bernauer Straße into West Berlin, dropping his submachine gun as he went.
15 August 1961
Renate Reich crosses at Harzer Straße on a forged identity card
Her West Berlin father came for her with a forged identity card. Finding the checks at Heinrich-Heine-Straße too thorough, they found a lone guard in the Harzer Straße who looked at their papers under a street lamp and let them through.
15 August 1961
Two youths flee over the fence of the Eternit works
At about 5.55 p.m. on 15 August 1961 a GDR customs commissioner on patrol found that two male youths had fled over the fence of the 'Eternitwerk'.
15 August 1961
Married couple swims the Britz canal under police fire
On 15 August 1961 East German police fired at a married couple swimming across the 'Britz Canal'; both escaped the bullets and reached the West Berlin bank exhausted.
15 August 1961
Erika Schallert walks across Bernauer Straße with her wedding-dress fabric
Two days after the border was closed, a student whose fiancé lived in West Berlin talked her way past men outside a house on Bernauer Straße by pointing to the fabric for her wedding dress, then walked across the street into West Berlin while helpers distracted them.
16 August 1961
Two policemen vanish from the Kobold works
The day after Conrad Schumann's jump, two Volkspolizei officers said to be his friends disappeared from their post on the Kobold works site at Bernauer Straße and went to the West.
16 August 1961
The flower-box lorry at Köpenicker Straße
At 6.30 on 16 August 1961 a driver loaded flower boxes in front of a florist's in Köpenicker Straße and drove back and forth, faking delivery trips. Then he drove straight over the crossing into West Berlin.
16 August 1961
Four riot-police cadets slip away from the barrier works at Schönefeld
On 16 August 1961 four NCO cadets of a riot-police training unit, deployed on engineering work near the Schönefeld control point, crossed into West Berlin. Their unit only noticed when children said they had seen riot policemen on the western side.
16 August 1961
Two men at the Späthbrücke: one swims, one walks over the bridge
At 6.15 p.m. on 16 August 1961 two men went to West Berlin at the Späthbrücke – one swimming, the other on foot over the bridge – without the police on duty there stopping them.
16 August 1961
Two men leave through the allotments at the Dammweg
At 6.10 p.m. on 16 August 1961 the guards at control point 64 on the Dammweg watched two men go to West Berlin, probably through the allotment gardens.
16 August 1961
Three jump from the works yard into the Flutgraben
At 11.05 a.m. on 16 August 1961 three people jumped from the grounds of the OLW works in Treptow into the Flutgraben and reached West Berlin.
16 August 1961
Ulrich H. goes into the bushes and does not come back
On the evening of 16 August 1961 Ulrich H., born 1942, a riot policeman on patrol between the Rudower Chaussee control point and the Kiesberg, said at about 8.30 p.m. that he was going into the bushes to relieve himself. He did not come back: he had deserted with his carbine, leaving his helmet and raincoat.
16 August 1961
Four men are caught on the timber yard in Wildenbruchstraße
On 16 August 1961 riot police caught four men born in 1943 and 1944, from Oberschöneweide, Kaulsdorf and Mahlsdorf, as they tried to get into West Berlin over the timber yard in Wildenbruchstraße, Treptow.
17 August 1961
The Mathern family leaves by the ground floor
Alarmed when the first front doors on Bernauer Straße were locked, the Mathern family fled from their ground-floor flat on 17 August 1961.
17 August 1961
Three young men crash a truck through the new barrier at Ruppiner Straße
Late on 17 August 1961 three young men drove a truck through the border barrier at Ruppiner Straße; the guards fired, but no one was hurt.
17 August 1961
Overboard from an excursion boat at the Schillingbrücke
On the morning of 17 August 1961 a man jumped from an East Berlin passenger boat near the Schillingbrücke and swam to the West Berlin bank.
17 August 1961
Across the Spree behind the Charité
On 17 August 1961 a person swam the Spree from behind the Charité hospital towards West Berlin. The Stasi said the confusing terrain there made the border very hard to secure.
17 August 1961
Günter D. crawls under the wire while his partner sleeps
On 17 August 1961 the police found that riot-police cadet Günter D. had crawled under the barbed wire at Grüneck in Altglienicke while the second guard on the post was asleep, taking a pistol without ammunition. It was discovered at 6.05 a.m.
17 August 1961
Out of No. 79, over the fence and into the soap shop opposite
In a report logged at 11.30 a.m. on 17 August 1961 the Treptow police recorded that a man had run out of Heidelberger Straße 79, jumped the barrier fence and gone into a soap shop on the opposite, West Berlin side of the street.
17 August 1961
A tipper lorry from the building site drives through the Sonnenallee crossing
At about 7.15 p.m. on 17 August 1961 a tipper lorry coming from the building site on the Heidekampweg drove through the Sonnenallee control point into West Berlin.
17 August 1961
A swimmer from Stralauer Allee is caught by works guards
In a report at 1.35 a.m. on 17 August 1961 the Friedrichshain police recorded that a man had jumped into the Spree at the level of Stralauer Allee to reach the western side, but had been caught by the works security on the grounds of 'VE BAW Treptow'.
18 August 1961
Two 'postal workers' cycle to the West
Five days after the border was sealed, two men in postal service uniforms told the guards at the Brunnenstraße crossing they had to check cable lines at the border, were let through, and simply cycled into West Berlin.
18 August 1961
A police sergeant swims the Teltow Canal
At 10.00 on 18 August 1961 Kurt Sch., an Oberwachtmeister in the Volkspolizei's Rummelsburg pioneer platoon, swam across the Teltow Canal to West Berlin, about 200 metres west of the Massante Bridge.
18 August 1961
Three wires cut at the Heidekampgraben
On 18 August 1961 a youth cut three strands of barbed wire at the Heidekampgraben near the Sonnenallee crossing and escaped. A family of three who tried to follow him through the gap was arrested.
18 August 1961
Two policemen climb out of the Liesenstraße cemetery
At 17.45 on 18 August 1961 two Bereitschaftspolizei men on guard duty climbed from the Liesenstraße cemetery over the wall into Gartenstraße. A crowd and a film van from the West Berlin broadcaster SFB were on the other side.
18 August 1961
Pulled out of the Spree at the Osthafen gate
At about 1 a.m. on 18 August 1961 a man jumped into the Spree at the gate of the Osthafen to swim to West Berlin; the works guards pulled him out.
18 August 1961
Gerhard B. is injured with a bayonet at Alte Jakobstraße
On the evening of 18 August 1961 Gerhard B., born 1942, tried to break through at control point 43 in Alte Jakobstraße; he resisted when being taken in and was injured with a bayonet.
19 August 1961
Rudolf Urban's rope descent from Bernauer Straße 1
Rudolf Urban and his wife let themselves down on a rope from their first-floor flat; he was badly injured and died in hospital four weeks later.
19 August 1961
A policeman crawls under the wire at mealtime
On 19 August 1961 Volkspolizei Wachtmeister Manfred B. crawled, while food was being handed out, under the barbed wire near the Sonnenallee crossing, in full kit and carrying a submachine gun. His fellow guard's weapon jammed.
19 August 1961
A Konsum delivery van rolls through the wire at Staaken
The guards knew the van – it regularly delivered to the Volkshaus restaurant – so nobody checked it until it sped up and drove over the wire barrier into West Berlin.
19 August 1961
Two policemen leave their carbines in Onckenstraße, then wave from a VW
Late on 19 August 1961 two riot policemen deserted from Onckenstraße in Treptow to West Berlin, leaving their carbines behind. Three days later they turned up at the Wiener Brücke in a Volkswagen and waved to a guard of their old unit.
19 August 1961
Two people caught at the cemetery wall in Scharnhorststraße
On 19 August 1961 two people were stopped trying to get over the wall of the cemetery in Scharnhorststraße into West Berlin.
20 August 1961
A militia man deserts from the wire detail at Zimmerstraße
On the morning of 20 August 1961 a member of a workers' militia unit, a DBD party official, left the wire detail he was working with at the corner of Zimmerstraße and Wilhelmstraße and went over to West Berlin without his weapon.
20 August 1961
Out of the window at the Brunnenstraße corner
At about 10.50 a.m. on 20 August 1961 two people left their flat on Bernauer Street at the Brunnenstraße corner through the windows and reached West Berlin.
20 August 1961
A married couple climbs out at the Wolliner Straße corner
At about 11 a.m. on 20 August 1961 a married couple escaped through the windows of their flat at the corner of Bernauer Straße and Wolliner Straße.
20 August 1961
A shot is fired at a man with a rucksack crossing the tracks near Wilhelmsruh
At 7.50 p.m. on 20 August 1961 a man with a rucksack broke through over the railway line about 300 m from Wilhelmsruh station into West Berlin; an aimed carbine shot was fired at him.
20 August 1961
A man of about 19 jumps the wall and the wire at control point 17
At 7.30 p.m. on 20 August 1961 a man aged about 19 broke through at control point 17 in Prenzlauer Berg, jumping over the wall and the wire obstacle.
20 August 1961
Three people at Adalbertstraße turn back when the guards come
At 10.25 p.m. on 20 August 1961 three people tried to overcome the border fortifications in Adalbertstraße; when the guards approached they fled back into East Berlin and got away.
21 August 1961
The person in the white coat from the Charité
On 21 August 1961 a person in a white coat came out of the last gate of the Charité and jumped over the barrier into West Berlin while the guard had been called to the telephone.
21 August 1961
A fitter climbs the Bergmann-Borsig factory wall with a ladder
On 21 August 1961 a fitter born in 1942, who was helping to put up a wire fence along the wall of VEB Bergmann-Borsig in Wilhelmsruh, left his brigade on a pretext and climbed over the wall with a ladder into West Berlin.
21 August 1961
From a lorry's radiator over the wire near control point 4
On the afternoon of 21 August 1961 a Hauptwachtmeister of the civil air-defence service, who was helping to build the border fence between control points 3 and 4, jumped from the radiator of a vehicle over the barbed wire towards West Berlin.
21 August 1961
Under the wire on the sewage fields between control points 3 and 4
At 9.10 p.m. on 21 August 1961 a riot-police post leader born in 1942, on duty on the sewage fields between control points 3 and 4, said he needed to relieve himself, pushed up the border wire and crawled through, taking his submachine gun and the post's logbook with him.
21 August 1961
A 63-year-old climbs out of her window as Harzer Straße is cleared
During the resettlement of residents in Harzer Straße, Treptow, in August 1961, a 63-year-old woman from No. 109 used the opportunity to climb out of the window and go to West Berlin.
22 August 1961
Ida Siekmann, first death at the Berlin Wall
Nine days after the border was sealed, 58-year-old Ida Siekmann jumped from her third-floor window onto the West Berlin pavement and died of her injuries.
22 August 1961
A pretend visitor jumps from Bernauer Straße 7
Claiming to be visiting someone, a young woman talked her way past the rear guard posts, then jumped from a first-floor window two hours later.
22 August 1961
Over the wall at Boyenstraße, then a photo
On 22 August 1961 a man waited in the hallway of Boyenstraße 43 until a patrol had passed, then pulled himself up the new wall and jumped over. From the West Berlin side, he took photographs.
22 August 1961
A patrolman excuses himself at Kiefholzstraße and does not come back
Shortly after midnight on 22 August 1961 an Unterwachtmeister on patrol at the corner of Kiefholzstraße and Dammweg left his unit, saying he needed to relieve himself, and deserted.
22 August 1961
Two pioneers go through the fence they were building at Grüneck
On 22 August 1961 two riot-police pioneers who were putting up fences at the Grüneck allotments in Altglienicke went through the wire into West Berlin; the superior present could not stop them.
22 August 1961
The lorry with an unloading permit that did not stop
At about 11.50 a.m. on 22 August 1961 an old private lorry with a permit to unload at the Zimmerstraße/Wilhelmstraße control point was let through, did not stop, and drove on into West Berlin.
22 August 1961
A brewery tractor driver leaves the border works at Chausseestraße
On 22 August 1961 the driver of a tractor from the Schultheiss brewery, used for building the border fortifications at Chausseestraße, fled to West Berlin.
22 August 1961
A railway-works employee lowers himself on a rope in Onckenstraße
According to a Stasi report of 22 August 1961, a man who had worked at the Treptow railway repair works left his flat in Onckenstraße by means of a rope and went to West Berlin.
22 August 1961
Three surveyors near Wilhelmsruh station are collected by West Berlin customs
According to a Stasi report of 22 August 1961, three employees of the surveying office who were doing survey work near Wilhelmsruh S-Bahn station fled to the West, where a West Berlin customs vehicle picked them up.
22 August 1961
Belongings out of the window first: an escape from Bernauer Straße 3 or 4
On the evening of 22 August 1961 an unknown person threw belongings out of a window of Bernauer Straße 3 or 4 and fled to West Berlin.
23 August 1961
A painter runs from the doorway and jumps the Wall
Renovation work in the border houses carried on after 13 August; a painter working at Brunnenstraße 139 ran from the doorway and jumped the Wall four metres away.
23 August 1961
Two guards use a piece of fence as a ladder
Just after midnight on 23 August 1961 two Bereitschaftspolizei men posted in the courtyard of Kremmener Straße 5 leaned a piece of fence against the wall and climbed over to West Berlin with their weapons.
23 August 1961
The chauffeur who was looking for his ring
On 23 August 1961 a workers' militia driver in uniform pulled up at the Dresdner Straße checkpoint and told the police he had lost his ring there. While pretending to look for it, he jumped over the wall.
23 August 1961
Sent to put flower bowls on the Wall
At 11.05 on 23 August 1961 a 30-year-old worker who was supposed to set up flower bowls on the barrier wall at the Brandenburg Gate escaped to the West, hidden from view by a lorry.
23 August 1961
Both legs broken: a jump from Harzer Straße 110
On the evening of 23 August 1961 a young man slipped into Harzer Straße 110 by a back entrance and jumped from the second-floor stairwell window into West Berlin, breaking both legs.
23 August 1961
An engine driver uses the night shunting at Staaken station
At 2.30 a.m. on 23 August 1961 an engine driver from Wustermark took advantage of shunting work at Staaken station, then on the GDR side of the border, and crossed into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
Two volunteer firemen from Groß Kreuz leave the border works at Kleinmachnow
Two members of the Groß Kreuz volunteer fire brigade, who had signed up to help build the border fortifications, went over to West Berlin near the Kleinmachnow/Ost control point on the morning of 23 August 1961.
23 August 1961
A man with a bicycle climbs the barrier at Glienicke/Nordbahn
On 23 August 1961 an unknown man approached the border at Glienicke/Nordbahn with a bicycle and was over the barrier before the guard could react.
23 August 1961
Over the wire with a ladder at Groß Ziethen
On 23 August 1961 an unknown man used a ladder to climb the border barrier at Groß Ziethen, south of Berlin, and got into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
A breakthrough from a garden on Am Waldrand, Klein Glienicke
On 23 August 1961 the border was broken through from the property Am Waldrand 2–3 in Klein Glienicke, a garden that directly adjoined West Berlin.
23 August 1961
A train on the bridge: a guard slips away at control point 4
Late on 23 August 1961 an Unterwachtmeister guarding the railway bridge at control point 4 used the moment his partner went under the bridge and a train passed over it to desert to West Berlin, where West Berlin police radio cars picked him up.
23 August 1961
A lorry driver delivering building material jumps the barrier wall
At 7.30 a.m. on 23 August 1961 a lorry driver born in 1940, who was bringing building material to a control point, left his cab and jumped over the barrier wall into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
A bricklayer painting the wall's coping stones jumps down on the other side
At 9 a.m. on 23 August 1961 a bricklayer born in 1942, who had been sent to paint the coping stones of the wall at control point 51, was standing on top of it – and jumped down into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
Over the wall from Zimmerstraße 85
At about 9.55 p.m. on 23 August 1961 a person came out of the house at Zimmerstraße 85 and got over the wall into West Berlin before the guard could stop them.
23 August 1961
Two men of about 18 climb the wall to the goods yard at Eberswalder Straße
At 12.30 a.m. on 23 August 1961 two men of about 18 climbed over the wall to the goods yard at Eberswalder Straße, heading west.
23 August 1961
Horst P. and Wolfgang R. are caught swimming at the Treptower Brücke
Before 4.20 a.m. on 23 August 1961 two men born in 1940 were found swimming in the water at the Treptower Brücke, trying to get to West Berlin, and were arrested.
24 August 1961
Parents and 14-year-old daughter rope down from Bernauer Straße 10
Probably on 24 August 1961 a married couple and their 14-year-old daughter let themselves down on a rope from a first-floor window.
24 August 1961
Max W.'s rope breaks at Bernauer Straße 24
Max W. let himself down from his first-floor flat; the rope snapped and he fell to the pavement, where West Berlin police picked him up.
24 August 1961
Two masons sent to measure the wall climb it
On the morning of 24 August 1961 two masons who had been sent to take measurements at the wall of the Liesenstraße cemetery climbed over it into West Berlin. A third was stopped.
24 August 1961
Detlef M. and Herbert Z. try the Wall at Ruppiner Straße
Eleven days after the border was sealed, two men tried to climb the new Wall at the corner of Schönholzer and Ruppiner Straße and were arrested.
24 August 1961
Three jump from the second floor of Bernauer Straße 20
At about 2.10 a.m. on 24 August 1961 two men and a woman jumped from a second-floor window of Bernauer Straße 20 directly onto West Berlin ground; the woman was hurt.
24 August 1961
Posing as bricklayers at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße wall
Early on 24 August 1961 two people in bricklayers' clothes told the guards at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße control point that they belonged to the bricklayers' brigade or had been sent to repair the border fortifications – and then got over the wall.
24 August 1961
Allowed to chat at the border, two people cross
On 24 August 1961 a riot-police lieutenant at the Chausseestraße control point let two GDR citizens talk to West Berliners right at the border line. They used the chance to cross.
24 August 1961
Günter Litfin – shot swimming the Humboldthafen
On 24 August 1961 tailor Günter Litfin, born 1937, tried to swim across the Humboldthafen and became the first refugee killed by targeted shots at the Berlin Wall.
25 August 1961
A volunteer fireman slips away through the Eiskeller
A member of the Nauen volunteer fire brigade, which was doing engineering ('pioneer') work in the area, fled to West Berlin through the Eiskeller exclave on the morning of 25 August 1961.
25 August 1961
A young man mingles with the builders at the Oberbaumbrücke
On 25 August 1961 a young man of 18 to 20 slipped in among the construction workers at the Oberbaumbrücke control point and got away to West Berlin while the guards were not paying attention.
25 August 1961
Two unsworn policemen leave with their carbines between Dammweg and Karpfenteichstraße
Between 7.57 and 8 a.m. on 25 August 1961 two riot policemen who had not yet been sworn in deserted together from their post between Dammweg and Karpfenteichstraße, taking their carbines and ammunition.
25 August 1961
Put back on the front line against advice, a policeman deserts at Harzer Straße
At about 3 p.m. on 25 August 1961 a riot policeman deserted from a patrol at Harzer Straße and Onckenstraße. Three days earlier the Stasi had told his battalion commander to keep him out of the front line, but the commander had put him back there against his company commander's advice.
25 August 1961
A group leader sends his partner away at the Britzer Brücke
At about 0.30 a.m. on 25 August 1961 a riot-police group leader at the Britzer Brücke control point sent his second man off after an officer on a flimsy excuse and used the moment to desert.
26 August 1961
A woman jumps from the first floor of Bernauer Straße 2
On 26 August 1961 a woman jumped from a first-floor window of Bernauer Straße 2; she was hurt and taken to safety by West Berlin police.
26 August 1961
A family of five leaves through an allotment at Klemkestraße
On 26 August 1961 a family of five got past the Klemkestraße control point in Pankow by pottering about on an allotment plot until the guards stopped paying attention to them.
26 August 1961
A Bewag worker who had spent ten days at the border crosses at Chausseestraße
At about 10.45 a.m. on 26 August 1961 a Bewag worker, who had been doing jobs right at the border for ten days, fled at Chausseestraße.
26 August 1961
A man and a woman swim the Teltow Canal near the Späthbrücke
At about 4.30 p.m. on 26 August 1961 a woman and a man swam across the Teltow Canal near the Späthbrücke into West Berlin.
26 August 1961
Round the guards at Heidelberger Straße
At about 6.15 p.m. on 26 August 1961 a man and a woman got into West Berlin in Heidelberger Straße by going round the posts; at the same time another woman broke through the barrier there.
27 August 1961
An unknown man over the wall at Swinemünder Straße
At about 4.10 p.m. on 27 August 1961 an unknown man climbed the barrier wall at the Swinemünder Straße control point and escaped into West Berlin.
27 August 1961
A railway policeman at Bornholmer Straße asks to relieve himself and is gone
At about 3.30 a.m. on 27 August 1961 an Oberwachtmeister of the railway police on duty at the Bornholmer Straße control point told his superior he needed to relieve himself and did not return, taking his carbine, pistol and truncheon.
28 August 1961
Dieter R. jumps from Bruno P.'s flat
Unseen by the guards, Dieter R. got into the flat of Bruno P. – who, investigators found, had already fled – and jumped from a second-floor window.
28 August 1961
A policeman sends his partner to watch the West Berlin police car, then climbs the fence
At 1.25 a.m. on 28 August 1961 a riot policeman on double patrol in Heidelberger Straße told his partner to go and see what a West Berlin police car was doing, climbed the fence while he was gone and was driven away by the West Berlin police. He was probably Burghardt A., born in 1943.
28 August 1961
A night patrol at Kiefholzstraße does not come back
At about 3 a.m. on 28 August 1961 two riot policemen patrolling Kiefholzstraße in Treptow deserted together, half an hour after their last check.
29 August 1961
Two men from Wollankstraße 14 escape over the railway embankment
On 29 August 1961 two men from the house at Wollankstraße 14 in Pankow got away to West Berlin over the railway embankment.
29 August 1961
A building worker at Melchiorstraße jumps the wall
On 29 August 1961 a man who was taking part in building work at the corner of Melchiorstraße and Adalbertstraße jumped over the wall.
29 August 1961
A mother climbs the wall at Lohmühlenstraße with her child, helped from the West
On 29 August 1961 a woman climbed over the wall at Lohmühlenstraße in Treptow with her child while people on the West Berlin side helped her.
29 August 1961
Called over from the West, a guard at Sebastianstraße goes
On 29 August 1961 a riot policeman guarding Sebastianstraße, urged from the West Berlin side to come over 'before it is too late', deserted as soon as his partner turned away.
29 August 1961
Roland Hoff – shot in the Teltow Canal
Five days after Günter Litfin's death, 27-year-old Roland Hoff jumped into the Teltow Canal with a briefcase under his arm and was killed by border police gunfire.
30 August 1961
Two escapes in one night from Bernauer Straße 2
At 1.30 a.m. a tenant and two friends roped down from Bernauer Straße 2; at about 4 a.m. five more people fled through a window of the same house.
30 August 1961
Under fire across the Teltow Canal at the Späthbrücke, a day after Roland Hoff
At 7.35 a.m. on 30 August 1961, less than a day after Roland Hoff was shot dead in the Teltow Canal, a guard at the Späthbrücke saw a man swimming the canal; despite warning shots and aimed fire he reached the western bank, probably wounded.
30 August 1961
A gardener breaks through from the unguarded water-authority site on the Teltow Canal
At about 6.40 a.m. on 30 August 1961 a gardener working on a water-authority site right on the Teltow Canal in Baumschulenweg crossed into West Berlin; the site had neither guards nor barriers.
30 August 1961
A pioneer crawler driver uses his job in the Tanneberg allotments
At about 9.30 a.m. on 30 August 1961 the driver of a pioneer crawler tractor who was working in the 'Tanneberg' allotment colony in Johannisthal, on the Britzer Zweigkanal, used the job to cross into West Berlin.
30 August 1961
Out of the corner pub and over the wall at Markgrafenstraße
At about 1 p.m. on 30 August 1961 a man walked out of the pub on the corner of Zimmerstraße and Markgrafenstraße and climbed over the wall while the patrol was on the other side of the street.
30 August 1961
Standing 150 metres from his partner, a policeman crosses at the Köllnische Heide
At about 1 p.m. on 30 August 1961 a riot policeman who, against orders, was standing about 150 metres from his partner in broken ground at the Köllnische Heide deserted to West Berlin.
30 August 1961
Two patrolmen at Kiefholzstraße had told their comrades the day before
At about 8.35 a.m. on 30 August 1961 two riot policemen deserted during a patrol on Kiefholzstraße. They had told two comrades of their plan the day before; the two had kept quiet and were arrested afterwards.
31 August 1961
A patrol leader at Schönwalde deserts with his carbine
On the morning of 31 August 1961 a Border Police lance corporal born in 1940 deserted from his post near Schönwalde with his carbine and 60 rounds; the Stasi listed him among the desertions to West Berlin.
31 August 1961
Two youths leave the Volkshaus Staaken through the cloakroom window
At 3.45 p.m. on 31 August 1961 two youths climbed out of the cloakroom window of the Volkshaus in Staaken, made for the border fence and were over it before the guard alerted by a signal device arrived.
31 August 1961
A former FU student cuts the fence at the Nibelungenweg
At about 6.50 p.m. on 31 August 1961 a man born in 1939 who had been a student at the Free University in West Berlin cut through the wire fence at the Nibelungenweg in Altglienicke; the guards noticed only when he was already in the West.
31 August 1961
Alone on his post at Schönholz, an unsworn recruit leaves his weapon and helmet
At about 8 p.m. on 31 August 1961 a riot-police recruit born in 1943, not yet sworn in and standing a post on his own at Provinzstraße in Schönholz, left his weapon, ammunition and helmet behind and deserted.
September 1961
Eight people escape over the Flutgraben from the VEB OLW works
According to a Stasi report of 14 September 1961, eight people had fled 'in recent days' from the grounds of VEB OLW in Treptow across the Flutgraben to West Berlin, and two more were arrested trying. The works' building on the channel was itself part of the border.
September 1961
Sent to help build the Wall, Albrecht Roos crawls under the fence from Falkensee to Spandau
Sent by the Kalinin engineering school for agricultural technology to help build the Wall, Albrecht Roos used a meal break, said he felt sick and crawled under the barbed wire through a ditch, crossing from Falkensee into Spandau in September 1961.
September 1961
Ingrid crosses at Friedrichstraße on her fiancé's sister's US passport
In late September 1961 a graduate student in West Berlin walked his East Berlin fiancée, her hair dyed to match the photo, through the Friedrichstraße/Zimmerstraße crossing on his sister's US passport.
1 September 1961
Three teenagers from Legebruch run for the border – one gets through
Shortly after midnight on 1 September 1961 three young people from Legebruch tried to break through at Hennigsdorf; guards fired 27 shots, arrested a girl and a boy, and the third youth reached West Berlin.
1 September 1961
A farmer's family leaves horse, cart and bicycles at the cut wire
On the evening of 1 September 1961 a farmer, his wife and their two children cut through the wire in the Groß Glienicke border sector and reached West Berlin, leaving a horse and cart and three bicycles behind.
2 September 1961
Over the barbed wire and the stone wall at Markgrafenstraße
At about 4 p.m. on 2 September 1961 a man of about 20 got over the barbed-wire obstacle and the stone wall at the corner of Markgrafenstraße and Zimmerstraße while the guard was not paying attention.
2 September 1961
Two air-defence men building the second line at Klemkestraße cross over
At the beginning of September 1961 two members of the civil air-defence service who were building barriers behind the first line at the Klemkestraße control point deserted to West Berlin; the guards could not stop them.
3 September 1961
Ulla D. and Hans K. break into an empty flat and jump
Using a pretext to get through the checks, the pair broke into the flat of a family who were already in the West and jumped from its window.
3 September 1961
A woman rides her bicycle up to the fence at the Rudower Chaussee and climbs over
At about 1.30 p.m. on 3 September 1961 a woman from Adlershof cycled up to the wire fence at the Rudower Chaussee control point and was over it before the guards could step in, leaving her bicycle, handbag and identity card behind.
3 September 1961
A policeman crawls through the fence at Treptower Straße
At 11.20 p.m. on 3 September 1961 a riot-police Unterwachtmeister crawled through the barrier fence at Treptower Straße onto West Berlin ground.
5 September 1961
Karl-Heinz S. climbs down a fire brigade ladder while police hold the guards at bay
At 3 a.m. West Berlin police drew pistols and dazzled the guards with mirrors while the fire brigade set a ladder against the corner house for four escapees.
5 September 1961
Two women and a child jump from a first-floor flat in Waldemarstraße
On 5 September 1961 two women with a child jumped from a first-floor flat in Waldemarstraße onto West Berlin territory.
6 September 1961
Günter Tr. climbs the Wall with a company ladder
An employee of the Murante firm in the border zone went to work as usual and then, with a woman smuggled in by a colleague, climbed the Wall on a company ladder; the colleague was arrested.
6 September 1961
Two guards let a woman with a baby through at the Puschkinallee
A woman whose husband was waiting on the other side asked a guard to let her through. He told her to come back after dark – and at 8.30 p.m. she crossed with a four-month-old child and a boy.
6 September 1961
Down a rope from the third floor of Dresdener Straße 114
On 6 September 1961 two people let themselves down on a rope from their third-floor flat at Dresdener Straße 114 onto West Berlin ground.
8 September 1961
A young man dashes from a bakery while a photographer distracts the guards
While sentries were checking the papers of an East Berlin magazine photographer, a young man stepped out of a bakery by the Wall and climbed over.
8 September 1961
A Barkas van breaks through at the Brandenburg Gate
At 2.50 in the morning a Barkas van drove at about 70 km/h through the right-hand side of the Brandenburg Gate, which was secured with metal poles, and stopped on the western side.
10 September 1961
A couple from Potsdam swims the Havel with their infant son in a rubber tub
Early on 10 September 1961 a young couple from Potsdam swam across the Havel into West Berlin, pushing their 18-month-old son across the river in a rubber tub, the New York Times reported.
10 September 1961
A lorry feints a turn, then ploughs through the Wall at Adalbertstraße
Two men in an H 6 lorry signalled a turn into Fritz-Heckert-Straße, then accelerated, forced a guard to jump aside and broke through the Wall into Kreuzberg.
10 September 1961
Four riot-police pioneers walk off during the breakfast break at Stolpe-Süd
On 10 September 1961 four men of the pioneer platoon of the Potsdam riot-police training unit, deployed on engineering work at Stolpe-Süd, crossed into West Berlin during their breakfast break; a fifth turned back and reported them.
10 September 1961
Policeman Gerd Sommerlatte flees at the Brandenburg Gate and is kidnapped back
Posted to the Brandenburg Gate after the border closed, an 18-year-old policeman fled across the wire with his weapon rather than risk having to shoot at people. Less than three weeks later the Stasi had him abducted back to East Berlin.
11 September 1961
69-year-old Ella K. escapes with the fire brigade's help
Shortly after midnight the West Berlin fire brigade helped 69-year-old Ella K. out of her first-floor flat; the guards noticed only when she was already safe.
12 September 1961
Down a telephone cable from Bernauer Straße 47
An unknown man broke into the Sch. family's first-floor flat and let himself down from the window on a telephone cable.
12 September 1961
A 56-year-old jumps from the third floor of Harzer Straße 113 into the fire brigade's sheet
At about 9.20 a.m. on 12 September 1961 a 56-year-old woman jumped from the third floor of Harzer Straße 113 into a jumping sheet held ready by the West Berlin fire brigade.
13 September 1961
Fire-net escapes at Harzer Straße, Treptow
Two men escaped from Harzer Straße 109 into a fire brigade net, but two hours later East Berlin police used a water cannon and tear gas to stop two women jumping from No. 117.
13 September 1961 – 14 October 1961
'Glockengasse 4711': the sewer route under the Alte Jakobstraße
In the weeks after the Wall went up, student escape helpers led East Berliners through a sewer from Mitte to Kreuzberg. A memorial plaque puts the number at about 500; other research counts about 150.
17 September 1961
Three people rope down from the corner house Brunnenstraße 138
On the evening of 17 September 1961 three people let themselves down on a rope from the corner house at Brunnenstraße 138.
19 September 1961
Heavily pregnant Helga Knittel jumps first
The Knittel family called the West Berlin fire brigade, then jumped one after another from their second-floor window into its net: first the heavily pregnant mother, then the daughter, then the father.
19 September 1961
Five escapees rope down from the roof of Bernauer Straße 43
Four men and a woman crossed the rooftops, tied a rope to a chimney and let themselves down to the western pavement; the woman fell from the third-floor level and was badly hurt, and another woman was caught in the attic.
19 September 1961
Three generations jump into the net at Bernauer Straße 10
At about 11.30 p.m. Mrs K., her daughter-in-law and her grandson Detlef jumped from the second floor into a West Berlin fire brigade net.
19 September 1961
A young man misses the window frame and falls three storeys
Discovered on a roof by the border, a young man swung over the edge, missed his foothold and fell three floors; West Berlin paramedics picked him up with several broken bones.
19 September 1961
Erich B.'s family jumps from Bernauer Straße 42
A family of five from Swinemünder Straße 23 jumped from the first floor of the neighbouring house into a fire brigade net; the father broke his thigh.
20 September 1961
Five fire engines for two jumpers at Bernauer Straße 10
Just after midnight guards watched five fire engines take up position with jumping sheets; shortly afterwards two people jumped.
22 September 1961
Family F. jumps under fire from the third floor
While a border policeman tried to stop her with a warning shot and West Berlin police fired tear-gas cartridges at him, a mother jumped into the fire brigade's net; her husband threw down their five-year-old son and then jumped himself.
22 September 1961
Truck driver Heinz K. over the glass-topped wall
A driver for the Murante firm, which lay inside the border area, hid his truck between site huts and climbed a five-metre wall topped with broken glass.
22 September 1961
Selma P. and her son Peter W. jump from the third floor
After telling relatives in the West, mother and son barricaded their door and waited for the fire brigade; both jumped into the net before the guards could break in.
23 September 1961 – 30 September 1961
Horst K. jumps, and a week later his wife follows with their baby
After a row with a party secretary, Horst K. jumped into a fire brigade net from a friend's lower flat; a week later his wife and five-month-old child escaped from the same flat.
23 September 1961
Irma B. barricades her door and climbs down a fire brigade ladder
At 2 a.m. Irma B. barricaded her flat door, and the West Berlin fire brigade set a ladder against the house for her.
23 September 1961 – 24 September 1961
Two jumps from the second floor of Bernauer Straße 16
On two consecutive days in September 1961 a man jumped from the second floor of Bernauer Straße 16 into the West: an unknown man on the 23rd, another man into a fire brigade net on the 24th.
24 September 1961
Frieda Schulze's tug-of-war at the window
As forced evictions began, a 77-year-old widow climbed onto her window ledge while East Berlin police tried to pull her back and West Berliners tried to help her down; she fell into the fire brigade's net.
24 September 1961
Evacuation-squad member jumps from Bernauer Straße 6
A doctoral candidate who had been sent with a militia unit to clear the border houses used a moment when a guard stepped away to jump from a first-floor balcony door into the West.
24 September 1961
Marianne S. flees as the eviction squads arrive
On the morning the forced evictions began, Marianne S. roped down from a window on a washing line and fell five metres; her disabled partner was left behind.
24 September 1961
West Berlin youths cut the fence at the Dammweg for a woman and her child
On 24 September 1961 young West Berliners cut through the border fence at the Dammweg control point from the western side, allowing a woman and her child to escape.
25 September 1961
Olga Segler's jump into the fire brigade net
Encouraged by her daughter waiting below, 80-year-old Olga Segler jumped from her second-floor window into a fire brigade net. She died the next day.
25 September 1961
Rudolf B., his wife and son rope down from Bernauer Straße 5
A family let themselves down on a rope from their second-floor flat; the guards only noticed when a crowd gathered and the fire brigade arrived.
25 September 1961
Out in American uniform jackets on a US sightseeing bus
On 25 September 1961 several young people boarded American buses at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptow, put on American uniform jackets inside and were taken into West Berlin unhindered.
27 September 1961
Anni M.'s rope tied round the sofa
Returning from holiday to find the border houses being cleared, Anni M. roped down the same evening with her valuables; guards found only a rope wound round the sofa.
27 September 1961
US Army helicopters fly seven refugees out of Steinstücken
Seven people who had slipped into the tiny West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken were flown out to West Berlin in two US Army helicopters.
28 September 1961
Joachim Rudolph through the Tegeler Fließ
On 28 September 1961 the student Joachim Rudolph and a friend crossed a green field from Schildow in the GDR and waded through the Tegeler Fließ, the border stream, into Lübars in West Berlin. A year later he helped dig Tunnel 29.
29 September 1961
Gerhard D.'s family escapes through a bricked-up cellar window
A neighbour reported West Berlin police loading things into a car; East Berlin police found the family's walled-up cellar window broken open and the four of them gone.
29 September 1961
The pair who came to rent a cellar
A woman and a man posing as would-be tenants of an 89-year-old's cellar ran straight to her window and jumped.
October 1961
Peter Hertel's forged BEWAG order and a gas worker's ladder
An East Berlin electricity worker talked his way into a border house with a forged order to remove meters, let himself down on a rope from the third floor and, when the rope ran out, climbed onto a ladder a gas-company worker propped against the wall.
October 1961
Michael Synowzik through the sewer under Checkpoint Charlie
In October 1961 the schoolboy Michael Synowzik escaped from East Berlin with his father through the sewers under the Zimmerstraße at Checkpoint Charlie, a month after his older brother had fled through the sewers.
2 October 1961 – 3 October 1961
Helgard Bromberger and four others through a rainwater sewer from Spittelmarkt
In the night of 2 to 3 October 1961 Helgard Bromberger, her friend Helga and three young men climbed into a rainwater sewer near Spittelmarkt, went through a hole in a grating that blocked the pipe and came up near Moritzplatz in West Berlin.
3 October 1961
A Tatra crane lorry breaks through at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Just before the checkpoint a building firm's crane lorry swung into Dresdner Straße, crashed through the border wall between two new blocks and raced into Kreuzberg under machine-pistol fire.
4 October 1961
Bernd Lünser's fatal rooftop jump
Chased across the rooftops by border guards, 22-year-old student Bernd Lünser jumped from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44 and missed the fire brigade net by a few metres.
4 October 1961
Three men try to escape through the sewer under Ackerstraße
Border policemen arrested three men who had already opened a manhole cover on Ackerstraße; two of them were already inside the sewer.
5 October 1961
Udo Düllick – drowned under fire in the Spree
Railway worker Udo Düllick tried to swim the Spree at the Oberbaumbrücke around midnight; chased by gunfire, he drowned just short of the western bank.
6 October 1961
Sewer escape helper Carl-August von Halle walks into a Stasi trap
A West Berlin architecture student who had helped East Germans escape through the sewers was lured into a trap by a Stasi informer and arrested at Friedrichstraße station.
6 October 1961
Anita L. and Erna M. are caught in the attic with a washing line
Two women who planned to let themselves down to the West on a washing line were arrested in the attic of Swinemünder Straße 24.
7 October 1961
Klaus Sch. comes through the cemetery and is caught in Bernauer Straße 10
A Swinemünder Straße resident got into the border house at Bernauer Straße 10 through the Elisabeth cemetery, meaning to flee, and was arrested there.
12 October 1961
A policeman who fled in the night is searched for in a railway keeper’s house at Wilhelmsruh
At about 3 a.m. on 12 October 1961 ten East German Vopo men crossed into West Berlin at Wilhelmsruh S-Bahn station to search an inhabited railway keeper's house for a Vopo who had fled during the night; West Berlin police sent them back.
12 October 1961
Eleven try the sewer pipe at Wolfswerder 3 – three get through
On 12 October 1961 a group of eleven people tried to escape from the property at Wolfswerder 3 in Kleinmachnow through a sewer pipe that led into West Berlin. Three reached the West; eight were arrested.
13 October 1961
Nine refugees run on when their lorry sticks in the wire
On 13 October 1961 nine East Germans tried to drive a lorry through the border into Zehlendorf. It got stuck in the barriers, but all nine ran on under constant fire and reached West Berlin; none of them was hit.
14 October 1961
Werner Probst – shot at the West Berlin ladder
Truck driver Werner Probst swam the Spree at night near the Schillingbrücke and was hit by gunfire as he climbed the ladder on the West Berlin quay wall.
15 October 1961
The rope snaps at Ackerstraße 43
A man lowering himself from a second-floor staircase window fell when his rope broke; passers-by carried him across the street.
16 October 1961
Family D. jumps onto a truck's tarpaulin
A long-planned escape: at 12.30 a truck pulled up and a couple, their 15-year-old son and a friendly couple jumped onto its canvas cover.
17 October 1961
Removal worker jumps onto a waiting truck
A removal worker clearing flats under police guard slipped into a front room, called West Berlin police over, who directed a truck under the window, and jumped onto it.
18 October 1961
Bricklayer Norbert Raasch jumps while walling up windows
Sent to brick up the windows of Bernauer Straße 44 under guard, construction worker Norbert Raasch, whose fiancée lived in the West, jumped from a first-floor window in an unguarded moment.
18 October 1961
A doctor from Hohen Neuendorf cuts both fences and drives through
On 18 October 1961 a woman doctor who lived right at the border in Hohen Neuendorf cut through both barrier fences and the concertina wire and drove her car, with two other people, into West Berlin.
21 October 1961
Hasso Herschel leaves on a Swiss passport
Weeks after the Wall went up, the later tunnel builder Hasso Herschel left East Berlin on someone else's Swiss passport and immediately began looking for a way to get his sister out.
22 October 1961
Dog handler Werner K. slips away over the cemetery wall
While training his successor as a dog handler in the Sophien cemetery, Private Werner K. made an excuse to leave his comrade and disappeared over the wall.
23 October 1961
Border policeman Lutz M. jumps from Bernauer Straße 2
A border policeman who found the prospect of shooting at refugees unbearable slipped away from his post, broke into an evacuated flat at Bernauer Straße 2 and jumped to the western pavement.
24 October 1961
Through the sewer from the stadium yard to Chausseestraße
On 24 October 1961 three people sawed through the grate of a sewer shaft in the service yard of East Berlin's Walter-Ulbricht-Stadion, went down, and climbed out of a manhole in Chausseestraße on the West Berlin side.
27 October 1961
Over the roofs from Ackerstraße 41 with a washing line
Two men climbed across the roofs, let themselves down on a washing line to the roof of the corner house and waited for morning; one jumped into a fire brigade net, the other was never noticed.
4 November 1961
Günter A. climbs the Wall under machine-pistol fire
While three guards stood together 40 metres from the Wall, Günter A. ran from the Kobold works to the Wall at Brunnenstraße; possibly hit by a burst of fire, he fell back, got up, climbed again and dropped into the West.
5 November 1961
Nine get through the wire between the Pankow cemetery and Schönholz
On 5 November 1961 thirty East Germans tried to get through the barbed wire between the Pankow cemetery and the Schönholz freight yard into West Berlin. A border guard's fire disrupted the attempt, and only nine, five men and four children, got across, the New York Times reported.
14 November 1961
Armoured pre-war Opel at Chausseestraße
Five East Berliners drove an armoured pre-war Opel P4 through the Chausseestraße crossing under heavy fire and reached West Berlin unhurt.
20 November 1961
Swimmers under fire at the Schillingbrücke reach the West Berlin bank
Shortly before 1 a.m. on 20 November 1961 the Spree was swum under fire at the Schillingbrücke. A Stasi report speaks of one man, injured by shots from the water police boat 'Toni 132'; the West Berlin police recorded three men who reached West Berlin, one of them wounded, and the fire brigade took them to hospital.
22 November 1961
Bernd Sp. leaves only his briefcase behind
Unseen by the guards, Bernd Sp. came from the Kobold works, used a door propped against a yard wall and climbed the Wall; the briefcase he left behind, found the next morning, allowed the guards to reconstruct his escape and identity.
26 November 1961
Lothar Lehmann – a young policeman swims from Sacrow
A 19-year-old member of the Groß Glienicke readiness police slipped into the Havel at Sacrow wearing a life jacket; the cold water caused a shock and he died after being pulled out by guards.
3 December 1961
Two adults and three children cut the wire near Dreilinden
On 3 December 1961 two adults and three children escaped near the Dreilinden control point on the autobahn at Drewitz after cutting through the barbed wire unnoticed by the guards; the breakthrough was discovered at about 6.50 p.m.
5 December 1961
Through a hole in a bricked-up window at Bernauer Straße 2
A 27-year-old man crept through back yards into the cleared border houses, knocked bricks out of a walled-up window and jumped down about seven metres.
5 December 1961
The last train to freedom
Locomotive driver Harry Deterling drove a passenger train at speed through the terminus at Albrechtshof and across the border into West Berlin.
6 December 1961
Gefreiter K. climbs the Wall behind a sight screen at Strelitzer Straße
Posted directly at the Wall, out of his squad leader's sight behind a screen, a transferred riot policeman climbed over just after midday.
9 December 1961
Dieter Wohlfahrt, escape helper shot at Staaken
A 20-year-old West Berlin resident with Austrian citizenship was shot while cutting through the border fence at Staaken to help a woman escape; he had been lured into an ambush and lay for more than an hour in the border strip without help.
10 December 1961 – 11 December 1961
Ingo Krüger – a diver's attempt to reach his fiancée
Separated from his West Berlin fiancée by the Wall, a 21-year-old cook and sport diver entered the Spree in diving gear near Friedrichstraße station; he drowned, and she watched from the far bank as a body was pulled from the water.
19 December 1961
Georg Feldhahn – a border policeman's escape at the Massante Bridge
A 20-year-old border policeman on patrol at the Teltow Canal slipped away towards the bridge to West Berlin and vanished; the GDR assumed he had escaped, until his body was found in the canal in March 1962.
19 December 1961
The Pankow Cemetery Tunnel
A young East Berlin bride, separated from her West Berlin husband by the Wall, crawled to freedom through a short tunnel whose entrance was hidden behind a gravestone.
21 December 1961
Joachim Neumann's Swiss passport
Engineering student Joachim Neumann dyed his hair, filled his pockets with Swiss odds and ends and played an aloof Swiss tourist to pass the Friedrichstraße checkpoint on a Swiss passport supplied through West Berlin student escape helpers.
25 December 1961
Michael Mara and a fellow patrol leader climb the wire at Kohlhasenbrück on Christmas morning
A young editor called up for border duty after 13 August 1961 fled on Christmas morning 1961 with a fellow soldier, climbing the wire away from the Kohlhasenbrück checkpoint and running into a West Berlin police hut still carrying his carbine.
29 December 1961
The boot left in the barbed wire
A border guard climbed the Sophien cemetery wall into West Berlin; when he got stuck in the barbed wire, two West Berlin policemen pulled him over, leaving one of his boots behind.
1962
A man works his way along the Flutgraben border building and jumps to the West
In 1962 a man worked his way along the ornamental brickwork of the VEB OLW workshop building on the Flutgraben and jumped across the border into West Berlin. The protruding brick courses were then knocked off.
1962
A 17-year-old is caught trying to cross through the grounds of the Villa Kampffmeyer
In 1962 the 17-year-old brother of a Potsdam resident tried to reach West Berlin across the grounds of the Villa Kampffmeyer near the Berliner Straße; he was caught and held in the Stasi remand prison in the Lindenstraße.
6 January 1962
A West Berliner scouting the sewer at the Gleimtunnel is fired on
At 00.15 on 6 January 1962 a 20-year-old West Berliner went into the sewer at the Gleimtunnel to explore escape routes for relatives. He set off an alarm in the sewer on the East Berlin side; East Berlin police (Vopo) then climbed in and fired two submachine-gun shots at him, which missed.
6 January 1962
A man is caught ten metres short of the wire east of Timmendorfer Weg
At 01.45 on 6 January 1962 a man of about 30 to 35 tried to escape from the Soviet sector east of Timmendorfer Weg in Rudow. Five border guards who noticed him fired submachine-gun bursts at him, and border guards arrested him about 10 m before the barbed wire.
16 January 1962
Private Klaus Sch. switches off the lights and climbs over on a stool
When his squad leader went to the next post, Gefreiter Klaus Sch. turned off the border lighting and climbed the Wall using a stool.
24 January 1962
The Becker Tunnel ("Tunnel 28")
Twin brothers dug a tunnel from the cellar of the family home on the border, and 28 people crawled through it to Frohnau in West Berlin in a single night.
26 January 1962
A young woman is shot at and arrested by the fence on Nennhauser Damm
At about 08.30 on 26 January 1962 a woman of about 18 who was near the border fence on Nennhauser Damm in Staaken was arrested by a two-man border-police patrol. Before the arrest a border guard fired four or five submachine-gun shots at her; the West Berlin police thought she was probably hurt.
27 January 1962
The Collapsed Tunnel under Wollankstraße Station
Students tried to dig from the bricked-up arches beneath Wollankstraße S-Bahn station into East Berlin, but the tunnel collapsed under the platform and was discovered before anyone could escape.
29 January 1962
Fake chimney sweep abseils from Bernauer Straße 13
Dressed as a chimney sweep, a young man walked past the guards into a border house, broke through a bricked-up attic window and let himself down on his sweep's rope.
6 February 1962
Two men get through north-east of the Sonnenallee crossing
At 18.50 on 6 February 1962 two men escaped to West Berlin in Neukölln, about 250 m north-east of the Sonnenallee crossing. Nine submachine-gun bursts fired by the border guards missed them.
16 February 1962
NCO Egon Z. knocks down his squad leader and flees with two women
A border troops NCO knocked out his squad leader and escaped near Gartenstraße together with his sister and her friend.
16 February 1962
A mother and her five-year-old jump from a balcony at Klein Glienicke
On 16 February 1962 a 25-year-old woman and her 5-year-old son jumped from the balcony of a house near the Böttcherberg cemetery into West Berlin. West Berlin police forced the border guards who were firing at them to take cover.
19 February 1962
Scraping out the joints by candlelight at Bernauer Straße 46
Guards found a hole broken through a bricked-up first-floor window; a man had apparently scratched out the joints with nails by candlelight and jumped.
19 February 1962
Dorit Schmiel – five friends crawl towards Reinickendorf
Five young East Berliners cut through the fence in Rosenthal after midnight and crawled across the snowy border strip; guards opened fire without warning, killing 20-year-old seamstress Dorit Schmiel and wounding a 16-year-old.
21 February 1962
Rudi Thurow leads refugees to Steinstücken
Border policeman Rudi Thurow removed the firing pins from his two comrades' submachine guns and fled with three acquaintances to the West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken; there was an exchange of fire but nobody was hurt.
22 February 1962
The Franzke brothers' first tunnel in the Heidelberger Straße is betrayed
Boris and Eduard Franzke dug a tunnel of more than 20 metres under the Heidelberger Straße to bring out their relatives. The plan was betrayed, and the family members waiting in the East were arrested.
March 1962
Annemarie Salzmann crawls through the wire at the Heidekrautbahn embankment
Dressed in overalls and leather gloves, a young trainee kindergarten teacher and her boyfriend crawled across a foggy field in Rosenthal and pulled each other through the barbed wire on the old Heidekrautbahn embankment.
21 March 1962 – 27 March 1962
Heidelberger Straße Tunnel and the Death of Heinz Jercha
Dozens of East Berliners escaped through a tunnel under Heidelberger Straße until a Stasi informer betrayed it; escape helper Heinz Jercha was shot in an ambush and died after crawling back to the West.
29 March 1962
Johannes M. offers a guard a thousand marks at Ruppiner Straße
Johannes M. tried to buy his and his girlfriend's way through the border; the guard agreed, then alerted his comrades.
April 1962
Philipp Held – a West German who could not get back
A 19-year-old from Worms who had moved to the GDR in 1961 tried to return to the West by swimming the Spree; his body was recovered on 22 April 1962.
3 April 1962
A border guard is shot down 15 metres from the line at Dreilinden
On 3 April 1962 a GDR border guard tried to reach West Berlin at the Dreilinden control point. A comrade set his dog on him and shot him. Badly wounded, he lay 15 metres from the border until he was taken away.
9 April 1962
A cement lorry through the wall in Boyenstraße
On 9 April 1962 a lorry loaded with cement broke through the wall in Boyenstraße. It got stuck with most of it still on the eastern side, but the two men on board ran into West Berlin unhurt.
10 April 1962
A nine-year-old jumps from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44
On 10 April 1962 a nine-year-old schoolboy jumped from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44 into the West Berlin fire brigade's jumping sheet. Border guards stopped a second child of the same age.
18 April 1962
Deserting cadets' gunfight at Griebnitzsee
Two armed NVA officer cadets tried to desert to West Berlin across disused S-Bahn land at Griebnitzsee; in the exchange of fire border guard Jörgen Schmidtchen and cadet Peter Böhme were killed, while Wolfgang G. reached the West.
18 April 1962
Fatal truck breakthrough at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Three young East Berliners crashed a truck through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing; they reached the West, but the driver, 23-year-old Klaus Brueske, died of his injuries.
29 April 1962
Horst Frank – caught in the last wire at Schönholz
Two friends from Saxony crawled for four hours across the border strip at the Schönholz allotments; Detlev W. reached West Berlin, while 19-year-old Horst Frank was spotted in the last barbed-wire fence and shot.
May 1962
Dieter T. and four friends fail at Ackerstraße 43
An 18-year-old who had fled once in 1961 and come back tried again with four friends from the house at Ackerstraße 43 in May 1962, and failed.
May 1962
Reinhard Spiller drives his parents out on a forged diplomatic pass
In 1962 the engineering student Reinhard Spiller, who had got to West Berlin himself two days after the Wall went up, drove his parents out through Checkpoint Charlie using a fellow student's Austrian passport and a forged diplomatic pass, then helped about 50 more people out the same way.
5 May 1962
The Pensioners' Tunnel (Thomas Tunnel)
A group of mostly elderly men led by 81-year-old Max Thomas dug an unusually tall tunnel from a chicken coop so that they and their wives could walk upright to West Berlin.
23 May 1962
Wilfried Tews swims the canal – border guard Peter Göring killed
A 14-year-old schoolboy from Erfurt swam the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal under heavy fire and reached West Berlin badly wounded; in the exchange of fire with West Berlin police, 21-year-old border guard Peter Göring was killed by a ricochet.
27 May 1962
Lutz Haberlandt – shot at the Charité
On a warm Sunday a 24-year-old bricklayer climbed from the Charité hospital grounds into the border strip; a guard on the tower of the Supreme Court shot him in the head and he lay in the bushes for about 40 minutes.
1 June 1962
Two girls try to help a friend escape at Lichterfelde-Süd
On 1 June 1962 a 16-year-old West Berlin girl was shot in the pelvis at the border in Lichterfelde-Süd while she and a 17-year-old friend were trying to help an acquaintance escape. The border guards arrested the friend.
5 June 1962
Axel Hannemann – from a cargo barge into the Spree
A 17-year-old apprentice from Cottbus jumped from the Marschallbrücke onto a westbound cargo barge; when the skipper stopped, he jumped into the Spree and was shot a few metres from the West Berlin bank.
8 June 1962
The excursion ship "Friedrich Wolf"
Young East Berliners commandeered the passenger steamer "Friedrich Wolf", locked up its crew and swerved under heavy fire into West Berlin's Landwehrkanal.
9 June 1962 – 11 June 1962
The Whitsun Tunnel (Pfingsttunnel)
In June 1962 helpers around Harry Seidel dug from the cellar of a Neukölln corner pub under Heidelberger Straße and, over the Whitsun weekend, brought East Berliners out through a photographer's shop.
10 June 1962
Helmut P. is shot at but gets over the cemetery wall
Helmut P. chose the Sophien cemetery for its cover; two guards at Ackerstraße fired as he pulled himself up the wall, but he got over; West Berlin police said he had been wounded.
11 June 1962
Erna Kelm – swimming belt under her clothes
On Whit Monday 1962 an angler found the body of 53-year-old Erna Kelm from Sacrow in the Havel; she wore a swimming belt under her clothes and had apparently tried to swim to West Berlin.
18 June 1962
Rudolf Müller's Tunnel and the Death of Reinhold Huhn
Rudolf Müller brought his wife, two children and sister-in-law through a self-dug tunnel to West Berlin, shooting dead the young border guard Reinhold Huhn when he tried to check their papers.
22 June 1962
A fugitive collapses under fire at the Forsthausallee bridge
At about 04.40 on 22 June 1962 a border guard fired a submachine-gun burst at a fleeing man at the Forsthausallee bridge. The man collapsed and about 15 minutes later was carried away in a tent sheet by the East Berlin fire brigade, apparently lifeless.
28 June 1962
The Betrayed Sebastianstraße Tunnel
Three West Berliners dug a tunnel to bring their wives and children out of East Berlin, but a Stasi informer had infiltrated the plan; Siegfried Noffke was shot dead when they broke through.
2 July 1962
Truck driver Günter P. climbs the Wall on his first day at the site
On his first day on a guarded demolition site, a driver climbed the Wall while another truck blocked the guards' view.
19 July 1962
A West Berliner cutting the wire for his wife is fired on near Rosenthal cemetery
At about 21.35 on 19 July 1962 a West Berliner tried to cut through the barbed wire near the Städtischer Friedhof Rosenthal so that his wife, who lived in East Berlin, could escape. Border guards fired about 30 submachine-gun rounds; he got away unhurt.
25 July 1962
One of three gets through at Karpfenteichstraße
According to a man who reached West Berlin in the early hours of 25 July 1962, he and two others had been spotted and fired on by border guards near Karpfenteichstraße in Treptow; the other two, one of them wounded, were arrested.
1 August 1962
Conscript Jörg S. stages a check and escapes with two friends
A conscript on rear-guard duty waved two friends through, lured his squad leader into a back yard where one of them knocked him down with a spade, and the three ran for the Wall; a fourth friend gave up when shots were fired.
7 August 1962
The Betrayed Kiefholzstraße Tunnel
Several escape-helper groups joined forces on a tunnel to a small house on Kiefholzstraße for a planned mass escape, but a Stasi informer among the couriers betrayed it and dozens of would-be refugees were arrested.
17 August 1962
Peter Fechter bleeds to death at Zimmerstraße
18-year-old bricklayer Peter Fechter was shot while climbing the Wall on Zimmerstraße and left to die at its foot for about 50 minutes in full view of West Berliners; his companion escaped.
23 August 1962
Hans-Dieter Wesa shot at Bornholmer Straße station
Transport policeman Hans-Dieter Wesa, 19, climbed the border fence at the closed Bornholmer Straße S-Bahn station and was shot dead by his post partner after he had already reached West Berlin territory.
4 September 1962
Ernst Mundt shot on the Sophien cemetery wall
Ernst Mundt, 40, climbed onto the glass-topped wall of the Sophien cemetery on Bernauer Straße and was shot in the head by a transport police officer.
14 September 1962 – 15 September 1962
Tunnel 29
Around 30 helpers, mostly students, dug a tunnel from a factory on Bernauer Straße to a cellar in East Berlin; 29 people escaped through it over two days while an American TV crew filmed.
17 September 1962
West Berlin police open a cellar window for three young men
While a West Berlin officer held the guards' observation post at gunpoint, police broke open a walled-up cellar window and three young men climbed out.
6 October 1962
The Second Heidelberger Krug Tunnel to Elsenstraße
A second tunnel from the Heidelberger Krug pub brought a tailor couple to the West in their pyjamas, but an informer tipped off the Stasi within hours and an escape helper was shot and captured.
8 October 1962
Anton Walzer – shot swimming from a barge
Sixty-year-old Anton Walzer climbed onto a moored barge and jumped into the Spree; a border guard shot him in the back of the head.
26 October 1962
Two young men swing over the Sophien cemetery wall under fire
Shortly before midnight two men in their early twenties used the cover of the cemetery to reach the Wall; guards at Ackerstraße 42 fired, but both got to West Berlin.
14 November 1962
The Kleinmachnow Tunnel and the Arrest of Harry Seidel
The betrayal of a 70-metre tunnel into Kleinmachnow ended with the capture of the famous escape helper Harry Seidel, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in a show trial.
19 November 1962
Horst Plischke – missing in the Havel for four months
A 23-year-old from Potsdam went into the Havel north of the Glienicke Bridge before dawn; guards spotted him and fired, and he drowned. His body surfaced four months later.
19 November 1962
He gets through, she is shot in the arm
At 3.40 on 19 November 1962 border guards at Baumschulenweg fired about 30 shots at two people trying to escape. The man reached West Berlin unhurt. The woman, probably hit in the arm, was arrested.
27 November 1962
Otfried Reck – the S-Bahn tunnel plan
Two friends tried to open a ventilation shaft to the North–South S-Bahn tunnel near the Nordbahnhof and stop a westbound train; discovered, they ran away and 17-year-old Otfried Reck was shot in the back.
5 December 1962 – 6 December 1962
Günter Wiedenhöft – through the ice of the Griebnitzsee
Days after being sentenced for a first escape attempt, a 20-year-old electrician tried again across the partly frozen Griebnitzsee; he broke through the ice and drowned.
15 December 1962
Pulled out of the Spree 15 metres from the line
Before dawn on 15 December 1962 border guards on a patrol boat fired about 25 shots at a man of about 45 who was swimming the Spree. They pulled him into the boat 15 metres short of the sector border, and he shouted to West Berlin police that he was wounded.
26 December 1962
The armoured bus of Boxing Day
On 26 December 1962 two families in a bus armoured with steel plates and fitted with a snowplough broke through the three barriers of the GDR control point at Drewitz and reached Dreilinden in West Berlin.
27 December 1962
Circus artiste Horst Klein on the high-voltage line
A circus artiste tried to cross the Teltow Canal by climbing along a high-voltage line, lost his strength and fell onto the eastern bank, from where West Berlin firemen fetched him in a rubber dinghy.
1 January 1963
Hans Räwel – New Year's morning in the icy Spree
After a New Year's Eve party, baker Hans Räwel, born 1941, swam into the freezing Spree and was shot at close range from a border boat about 35 metres from the western bank.
5 January 1963
Jürgen B. is caught past the wire at Ruppiner Straße
Jürgen B. had already climbed the first wire fence when guards arrested him at Ruppiner Straße in the night before 5 January 1963.
15 January 1963
Horst Kutscher – shot 25 metres from West Berlin
On the night before the SED party congress, coal worker Horst Kutscher and a colleague crawled towards the border in Johannisthal; about 25 metres from West Berlin shots were fired and he was killed.
24 January 1963
Peter Kreitlow – shot by Soviet soldiers near Nieder Neuendorf
Five young men decided on the spur of the moment to flee from Hennigsdorf to West Berlin; still about two kilometres from the border, a Soviet patrol opened fire and 20-year-old Peter Kreitlow was killed.
31 January 1963
Two trainees swim through the ice floes of the Nieder Neuendorfer See
On the night of 31 January 1963 an LEW apprentice and a 20-year-old student on a work placement got through the border fences at Nieder Neuendorf and swam through the ice floes of the lake to Heiligensee in West Berlin.
February 1963
The betrayed second tunnel from Bernauer Straße 78
Tunnel 29's builders dug again from the same cellars; on breakthrough day Stasi officers lay in wait at Brunnenstraße 45. The diggers noticed in time, but 14 would-be escapees and three couriers were arrested.
February 1963 – 1 April 1963
Wolf-Olaf Muszynski drowns in the Spree, presumably while trying to escape
A 16-year-old from Friedrichshain went missing in February 1963; on 1 April his body was found in the Spree on the West Berlin bank near the Oberbaumbrücke. Historians conclude he most likely drowned trying to escape, unseen by the border guards.
10 March 1963
The Aagaard Tunnel
A family in Glienicke spent five months digging a 50-metre tunnel by hand from their living room, hiding the sand inside their house, before 13 people crawled to West Berlin.
8 April 1963
A second tunnel from Heidelberger Straße 35 – Boris Franzke's last
A year after Heinz Jercha was shot at the same spot, escape helpers dug a new tunnel from Heidelberger Straße 35 to no. 75. Up to 20 people escaped through it before a resident noticed the broken cellar door.
17 April 1963
Wolfgang Engels' armoured personnel carrier
A 19-year-old civilian army employee drove a stolen Soviet-built armoured personnel carrier into the Wall and was shot while climbing over, but reached the West.
26 April 1963
Peter Mädler – 'Don't shoot!' in the Teltow Canal
A 19-year-old electrician swam into the Teltow Canal at Kleinmachnow before dawn; about ten metres from the border he called out 'Don't shoot!' but was shot dead by border guards.
29 April 1963
A stolen army workshop lorry through the Wall at Leuschnerdamm
Shortly after midnight on 29 April 1963 a stolen army lorry drove through the sight screen, two wire barriers and the Wall at Leuschnerdamm. The Stasi recorded it as a serious border breakthrough by presumably four men.
4 May 1963
Two Swiss typesetters and the hidden railwayman from Dresden
Two Swiss men had built a hiding place into their Chevrolet to smuggle out a woman from Dresden; when she would not come, they took her colleague instead – and all three were caught at Checkpoint Charlie.
5 May 1963
Under the barrier in an Austin-Healey Sprite
An Austrian, Heinz Meixner, drove a low-slung Austin-Healey Sprite with its windscreen removed under the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie, carrying his fiancée and her mother hidden in the car.
7 May 1963
Fake UN diplomats: the taxi driver's 'CD' car caught on Karl-Marx-Allee
A West Berlin taxi owner carrying a UN diplomatic passport in a Swiss man's name said he had already driven 16 people through Checkpoint Charlie in cars with 'CD' plates on six trips since April 1963. On 7 May 1963 he was arrested on Karl-Marx-Allee.
12 May 1963
Failed bus escape at Invalidenstraße
Eight young East Berliners tried to ram a stolen, steel-plated bus through the Invalidenstraße crossing; it was riddled with bullets and stopped one metre short of the West.
24 May 1963
The betrayed Kremmener Straße tunnel, dug from East to West
East Berliners dug a 45-metre tunnel from a disused bakery cellar at Kremmener Straße 15 almost to Bernauer Straße before it was discovered in May 1963; 19 people were jailed.
July 1963
Betrayed a few metres short: the tunnel to Eberswalder / Oderberger Straße
A tunnel from the former freight yard towards the corner house at Eberswalder and Oderberger Straße had to be abandoned a few metres short in July 1963 after the plan was betrayed and two diggers were arrested in East Berlin.
4 July 1963
A gunner steals a loaded T-34 tank to break through to West Berlin
Left unsupervised in his barracks, an NVA tank gunner took the keys to the tank hall, loaded the machine guns of a T-34/85, picked up a friend and drove off towards Güterfelde – until an officer jumped onto the moving tank.
23 August 1963 – 8 September 1963
Border guard Siegfried Widera fatally injured at the Massante Bridge
Three construction workers overpowered two East German border guards at the Massante Bridge and ran across to West Berlin; guard Siegfried Widera died of a fractured skull two weeks later.
4 September 1963
Jürgen Cr. jumps from the new wall
While guarding engineers who were building a second concrete wall at Bernauer Straße, conscript Jürgen Cr. jumped over the front wall into West Berlin when his partner went off to get cigarettes.
9 September 1963
Two border policemen escape from their bulldozer in Falkensee
Two GDR border policemen, aged 20 and 23, who had been levelling the death strip at Falkensee drove their bulldozer up to the barriers, climbed the fences and reached West Berlin unnoticed.
18 October 1963
Border policeman crashes a crawler tractor through the wire
A 22-year-old border policeman assigned to levelling work broke through the wire barriers between Wilhelmsruh and Reinickendorf with a crawler tractor; when it stuck halfway, he continued to the West on foot.
4 November 1963
Klaus Schröter – homemade diving suit at the Reichstag
Engineer Klaus Schröter sold his television to buy breathing gear, sewed himself a weighted diving suit and tried to cross the Spree underwater near the Reichstag; guards shot him and he drowned.
20 November 1963 – 21 November 1963
Hubert Hohlbein – through the Jungfernsee in a diving suit
Wearing a diving suit and weight belt, 21-year-old Hubert Hohlbein swam low in the water from near Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam to the West Berlin shore by the Glienicker Brücke.
25 November 1963
Dietmar Schulz – killed on the S-Bahn tracks north of Bornholmer Straße
A 24-year-old man from Pankow tried to reach Wedding across the railway tracks in the border zone north of Bornholmer Straße and was fatally struck by a train.
25 December 1963
Paul Schultz – shot on the Wall on Christmas Day
Two 18-year-old friends from Neubrandenburg climbed the Wall at dusk on Christmas Day 1963; Hartmut D. got across unhurt, while Paul Schultz was shot on the Wall and died that evening in a West Berlin hospital.
26 December 1963
A hijacked taxi from Zerbst and a Boxing Day dash at Schönefeld
Three men from a GDR reception home forced a taxi driver to take them from Zerbst to the edge of West Berlin; with a fourth man they tried to cross the border at about 4.50 a.m. and were stopped by gunfire.
1964 – November 1967
The Cadillac with a dashboard hideout
Escape helper Burkhart Veigel used a Cadillac DeVille with a hiding place behind the dashboard to smuggle refugees out of the GDR for about three years.
January 1964
Jumping onto the Moscow–Paris Express behind Friedrichstraße
In January 1964 a group of young East Berliners jumped, alone or in pairs, from a hiding place just behind Friedrichstraße station onto the westbound Moscow–Paris Express. The route was discovered when Karl-Heinz Richter stumbled, was badly hurt and was arrested.
7 January 1964
The first Bernauer Straße 97 tunnel ends in a coal yard
The first tunnel from a bakery cellar at Bernauer Straße 97 surfaced in a coal yard in view of the guards; three young women got through before it was discovered.
19 January 1964
Wounded teenager pulled over the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate
A youth ran for the Wall south of the Brandenburg Gate, was shot in the leg, limped along the Wall and was pulled over by West Berlin police officers.
19 January 1964
A guard knocks his comrade off the watchtower and gets stuck between wall and fence
A border soldier struck his post leader with his machine pistol, climbed the Wall with the watchtower ladder and fired at a motorcycle patrol – but he landed in the strip between the Wall and the actual border fence and gave up after warning shots.
27 February 1964
Walter Hayn shot beside the 'Sorgenfrei' allotments
Former People's Police officer Walter Hayn was shot just short of the fence to West Berlin's allotments; his family was told he had drowned.
14 March 1964
The wheelchair on the S-Bahn to Zoo
Two young men, one of them posing as a frail wheelchair user, cut the padlock off the lift to the westbound platform at Friedrichstraße and let the S-Bahn staff help them onto a train to Bahnhof Zoo.
17 March 1964
An unknown escapee slips past the guards at Gartenstraße
In the early morning of 17 March 1964 an unidentified person got over the border installations at Gartenstraße, about a metre from where the sentries were standing.
20 April 1964
Concrete lorry to the canal bank, then a swim
Two lorry drivers drove a loaded Škoda truck from a Teltow concrete works through the border fences down to the canal bank and swam across to West Berlin.
16 May 1964
The borrowed identity card: a wife crosses on a stranger's papers
A man who had fled the GDR in 1963 took a West German apprentice from Holstein on a trip to East Berlin and kept her papers 'for safety'. Someone left through Friedrichstraße on them – according to the Stasi, his wife, who resembled her.
19 May 1964
A 'lost' Danish passport at Friedrichstraße
Fifteen minutes after someone had left East Berlin on her passport, a Danish woman turned up at the Friedrichstraße crossing to report that her papers had gone missing.
23 May 1964
Smuggled out in a BMW Isetta
Klaus-Günter Jacobi hid his friend Manfred Koster in a modified BMW Isetta, the smallest car ever used for an escape; a student friend drove it across the border into West Berlin.
12 June 1964
Smoke screen at the Wilhelmsruher Damm
Under cover of smoke canisters thrown from West Berlin, a woman doctor and a man with the same surname as her maiden name abandoned their Trabant in the barrier and ran through a pre-cut gap in the fence in broad daylight.
22 June 1964
Walter Heike shot at the Invalidenfriedhof
Former customs officer Walter Heike climbed the cemetery wall and was pulling himself up the last wall before the canal when a border NCO shot him.
12 July 1964
The Lloyd 600 with a secretary hidden in the back
An Egyptian geology student drove a Lloyd 600 back to West Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie; in a hiding place at the back was a secretary from the GDR Building Academy.
28 July 1964
Norbert Wolscht and Rainer Gneiser – homemade diving gear in the Havel
Two 20-year-old friends from Freiberg in Saxony tried to reach West Berlin underwater through the Havel near Potsdam using self-built breathing equipment; both drowned in the night of 27–28 July 1964.
18 August 1964 – 20 August 1964
Wernhard Mispelhorn shot at the Schönholz allotments
Eighteen-year-old Wernhard Mispelhorn, whose girlfriend had just moved to West Berlin, suddenly ran for the fence at the Schönholz allotments and was shot in the head.
18 August 1964
Hildegard Trabant shot in the back on the disused S-Bahn line
Discovered hiding behind an elder bush on the disused railway, 37-year-old Hildegard Trabant ran away from the border and was shot in the back.
19 August 1964
Two Spanish workers and a hidden Pankow man at Checkpoint Charlie
At a quarter to one in the morning two Spanish workers employed in West Berlin drove up to Checkpoint Charlie in a Renault. The controllers found a man from Pankow, born in 1939, in a hiding place built into the car.
9 September 1964
Fifteen people behind the pig carcasses
A trusted meat-transport driver took his wife, their eight children and his brother-in-law's family of five through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße checkpoint hidden among pig carcasses.
13 September 1964
Michael Meyer pulled over the Wall under fire
Badly wounded by border guards' bullets, 21-year-old Michael Meyer was hauled over the Wall on a rope by a US military police sergeant while West Berlin police and US soldiers returned fire.
3 October 1964 – 5 October 1964
Tunnel 57
57 East Berliners crawled through a 145-metre tunnel dug by West Berlin students under Bernauer Straße. The escape ended in a shoot-out in which border guard Egon Schultz was killed; records opened after 1990 showed the fatal shots came from a fellow GDR soldier.
10 October 1964
A sleeping pill for the four-year-old: the American's Ford at Checkpoint Charlie
An American Lufthansa loader built a hiding place behind the back seat of a Ford to bring out a colleague's cousin and her four-year-old child, who was given a sleeping pill. They were caught at Checkpoint Charlie.
26 November 1964
Hans-Joachim Wolf shot in the Britzer Zweigkanal
Seventeen-year-old apprentice Hans-Joachim Wolf jumped into the ice-cold Britzer Zweigkanal; guards fired 61 shots without warning and ignored his calls to stop.
3 December 1964
Joachim Mehr shot in the wire near Bergfelde
After a spontaneous decision in a pub, 19-year-old carpenter Joachim Mehr and Hans-Jürgen K. ran for the wire near Frohnau; both were wounded, and Mehr was killed by further shots after they had given up.
11 December 1964
Hidden in the airport bus's spare-wheel box
The driver of the Interflug shuttle bus to West Berlin simply did not come back one morning; his girlfriend rode with him through the Invalidenstraße checkpoint inside the spare-wheel box.
January 1965
Through a cut grille between the S-Bahn platforms
A young West Berliner who had fled himself the year before cut a grille beneath the glass wall between the S-Bahn platforms at Friedrichstraße so that his girlfriend could slip through.
4 January 1965
Rope-ladder escape at Ruppiner Straße
Equipped with wire cutters, a rope ladder and a throwing line, a man of about 25 got over the Wall near Ruppiner Straße despite gunfire; stray bullets hit a West Berlin bedroom.
31 January 1965
Kuo Ying-Hu's Mercedes: three people in the boot
A Chinese journalist living in East Berlin, who had permission to drive his Mercedes into West Berlin, tried to take three people from Pankow, born in 1904, 1934 and 1960, out in his boot.
March 1965
A bookshop assistant leaves in the boot of two French officers' car
In March 1965 a 19-year-old East Berlin bookshop assistant asked two French military officers for help; the next evening they drove her to the West in the boot of their car.
3 March 1965
Clothesline rope escape from a Treptow border house
A 26-year-old engineer tied a knotted 50-metre clothesline to a fourth-floor window, lowered himself down, swung over the Wall and dropped into Neukölln.
4 March 1965
Christian Buttkus – a snowstorm escape at Kleinmachnow
After abandoning plans to dive through the Teltow Canal, Christian Buttkus and his fiancée Ilse P. tried to cross at Kleinmachnow in a snowstorm; he was killed at the last fence and she was wounded and jailed.
18 March 1965
An apprentice cuts through three fences at Schönefeld and is shot at the last one
Late at night a car-panel-beater apprentice from Berlin cut through three wire fences on the Schönefeld border. The guards heard him and fired 39 rounds just as he reached the last fence.
April 1965
A West Berliner jailed after an East German fled on his papers, April 1965
In April 1965 an East German used a West Berliner's identity papers to flee to the West; the West Berliner, who had visited relatives in East Berlin that weekend, was jailed there, the AP reported.
7 May 1965
Roofers escape from the Klein Glienicke chapel
Two roofers repairing the chapel roof in the GDR exclave of Klein Glienicke disarmed one of their guards and crossed the Wall with a ladder into Zehlendorf.
9 June 1965 – 11 January 1966
Dieter Brandes – shot at the Nordbahnhof, died months later
Eighteen-year-old Dieter Brandes was shot a few metres from the last barrier at the Nordbahnhof; paralysed, he died in hospital on 11 January 1966.
28 July 1965 – 29 July 1965
The Holzapfel family's cable slide from the Haus der Ministerien
A Leipzig family hid in the East German government's Haus der Ministerien, climbed onto its roof after dark and slid on a steel cable over the Wall into West Berlin.
8 August 1965
Klaus Kratzel killed in the S-Bahn tunnel at Bornholmer Straße
Having returned to East Berlin after a family quarrel, bricklayer Klaus Kratzel tried to get back to his wife and children in the West along the railway at Bornholmer Straße and was apparently struck by a train.
16 August 1965
In the shadow of a tourist bus at Checkpoint Charlie
A young man walked out of the Checkpoint Charlie control area unchecked, keeping to the blind side of a West German coach full of American tourists.
17 August 1965 – 18 August 1965
Klaus Garten – left to bleed in the vehicle ditch
SED member Klaus Garten was shot in the thigh climbing a garden fence at the border in Teltow-Seehof; guards hid him from Western view and took him to a distant Stasi prison hospital, where he died.
27 August 1965 – 28 August 1965
A miner escapes through the Spree at Mühlenstraße
In the night of 27 to 28 August 1965 a 31-year-old miner made his way through ruined buildings in the border strip at Mühlenstraße, entered the Spree and escaped to West Berlin.
19 September 1965
A Teltow schoolgirl behind the dashboard of a Peugeot
A teenage girl from Teltow, whose parents had already fled, was hidden behind the dashboard of a Peugeot by two Americans living in West Berlin. She was found at Checkpoint Charlie.
18 October 1965
Walter Kittel – killed after surrendering at Kleinmachnow
Walter Kittel and a chance acquaintance had already given themselves up when a border troop commander fired 30 shots at him from 15 metres; the shooter later received the longest sentence of any Wall guard.
5 November 1965
Two young conscripts vanish in the fog at Bergmann-Borsig
A two-man patrol of new conscripts from the same home town climbed the fence and the new concrete wall at Wilhelmsruh in thick fog and took their submachine guns with them.
10 November 1965 – 11 November 1965
Heinz Cyrus – hunted into Gartenstraße 85
Chased from the border strip by gunfire, Heinz Cyrus fled into a building on Gartenstraße, climbed out of a fourth-floor window and fell into the courtyard; he died the next morning.
25 November 1965
Heinz Sokolowski – shot at the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate
Former journalist and political prisoner Heinz Sokolowski, 47, had reached the Wall between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate when a guard shot him in the abdomen.
26 November 1965 – 3 December 1965
Erich Kühn shot 'blindly into the bushes' at Kiefholzstraße
Sixty-two-year-old Erich Kühn was wounded when a guard, ordered to act, fired blindly at a noise on the railway embankment at Kiefholzstraße; he died eight days later.
26 December 1965
Heinz Schöneberger – escape helper shot at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Two West German brothers tried to smuggle two East Berlin women out in a Ford Taunus; when one hiding place was discovered, Heinz Schöneberger tried to force the barrier and was shot just before reaching the West.
31 December 1965
Two conscripts flee on New Year's Eve at Gartenstraße
On New Year's Eve 1965 two conscript border soldiers posted at Gartenstraße ran round the S-Bahn entrance, forced their way through barbed-wire and mesh fences and jumped down into West Berlin.
15 January 1966
Gerd L. turns back under warning shots and hides at Brunnenstraße 141
A local resident reached the border strip, then under construction; warning shots turned him back and he was arrested on the top floor of Brunnenstraße 141.
28 January 1966
80 shots at Manfred B.
After a marital row, Manfred B. climbed two fences; the Kremmener Straße sentries fired 80 rounds and arrested him. West Berlin answered with a poster addressed to the soldiers.
7 February 1966
Willi Block – trapped in the wire and shot at Staaken
Caught in a roll of barbed wire in full view of West Berlin police, former border policeman Willi Block was shot dead after a stand-off; the regimental commander himself fired.
14 March 1966
Children Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener shot in Treptow
Ten-year-old Jörg Hartmann and 13-year-old Lothar Schleusener slipped into the border strip in Treptow after dark and were shot by border guards; the regime told their families false stories about how they had died.
19 March 1966
Two NCOs run for the border at Kohlhasenbrück – one gets through
NVA NCOs Willi Marzahn and Eberhard M. took weapons from their barracks and ran through the death strip near Steinstücken; in a firefight Eberhard M. reached West Berlin, while Marzahn died of a head wound.
23 March 1966
"Now there are two fewer of you!"
Two conscripts on duty at Eberswalder Straße broke open a door in the sight screen, climbed onto the freight-yard wall and jumped into the West; their comrades only noticed when a West Berlin policeman shouted across.
30 March 1966
Eberhard Schulz shot after standing up to surrender
Farm worker Eberhard Schulz, 20, and his friend Dieter K. had already given up when three guards found them; Schulz rose from the grass and was shot in the face and neck.
25 April 1966
Michael Kollender – a soldier's flight from guard duty
Conscript Michael Kollender left his sentry post in uniform and ran for the Teltow Canal; four guards fired 109 rounds and he was hit a few metres from the border; he died in the People's Police hospital.
19 May 1966
Peter St. escapes on his birthday, losing his wallet
On his birthday Peter St. crawled from the Sophien cemetery across the border strip; a signal device failed and he got through, leaving behind a wallet containing his call-up papers.
26 July 1966
Eduard Wroblewski – 274 shots at Mahlow
Family man Eduard Wroblewski was hit twelve times from behind in the barbed wire beside the old Mahlow–Lichtenrade railway, in one of the heaviest shootings at the Wall.
26 August 1966 – 27 August 1966
Hartmut Richter swims the Teltow Canal
Eighteen-year-old Hartmut Richter spent about four hours in the Teltow Canal, swimming roughly a kilometre past the border defences to Dreilinden in West Berlin.
7 September 1966
Klaus N. escapes his pursuers but is arrested in Brunnenstraße
Fired on after climbing the rear fence at Schönholzer Straße, Klaus N. hid behind the tank traps, slipped back to East Berlin, and was arrested by a policeman who had watched from his flat.
11 September 1966
Bulldozer through the Staaken border
Two married couples and a three-year-old child flattened the Staaken border fences with an armoured 18-tonne bulldozer until a tree stopped them in Spandau.
29 October 1966
Siegfried J. sets off an alarm and gives up at Bergstraße
A man who had moved from West to East Berlin only in 1965 climbed the cemetery wall at Bergstraße, triggered a signal device, turned back and was caught hiding in a school yard.
November 1966
Michael Schwerk pulls the S-Bahn emergency brake
In November 1966 Michael Schwerk, a conscript in the Bereitschaftspolizei, stopped an S-Bahn train near the border by pulling the emergency brake and fled across the tracks, a disused railway shaft 4.80 m deep and two barbed-wire fences into West Berlin.
16 December 1966
Karl-Heinz Kube shot near the Teltow harbour
Seventeen-year-old Karl-Heinz Kube and his friend Detlev S. were one fence from West Berlin when they were fired on; Kube was killed in the ditch where they sought cover.
1967
Two transport workers plan to stop a West Berlin U-Bahn train under Alexanderplatz
In summer 1967 two 20-year-old East Berlin transport workers planned to climb from a workshop at Alexanderplatz station into the tunnel of the West Berlin line (today's U8) and stop a westbound train. A colleague informed the Stasi.
27 January 1967
Max Sahmland – shot while swimming the Teltow Canal
Wounded after setting off the alarm at the signal fence, Max Sahmland reached the Teltow Canal and swam for the western bank, but guards kept firing and he sank only metres from safety.
17 October 1967
Franciszek Piesik – from the Oder to the Nieder Neuendorfer See
Polish inland-waterways worker Franciszek Piesik crossed the Oder into the GDR, stole a motorboat at Hennigsdorf and, when spotted, tried to swim the cold Nieder Neuendorfer See to West Berlin; he drowned.
26 December 1967
A rope over the Wall at Korsörer Straße – held by West Berlin policemen
An East Berlin woman's West German boyfriend threw a rope over the Wall in the night of 25/26 December while two West Berlin policemen held it; she was trying to pull herself up when the guards opened fire.
18 February 1968 – 19 February 1968
Elke and Dieter Weckeiser shot opposite the Reichstag
A young married couple from Fürstenwalde were fired on from a watchtower as they crawled through the first barbed wire opposite the Reichstag; both died of their wounds.
28 May 1968
Bernd Lehmann – caught in underwater barbed wire
Eighteen-year-old Bernd Lehmann entered the Spree near Treptower Park, apparently heading for the Flutgraben, but became entangled in barbed wire strung under the water and drowned.
7 July 1968
Bernd B. is shot five metres from the Wall
Crawling in the shelter of the Reconciliation Church, Bernd B. got within five metres of the Wall before a guard fired a warning shot and then shot him as he tried to jump up.
20 October 1968
110 bottles of hydrogen and a plastic balloon – then two families climb the fence at Groß Glienicke
Two families from Premnitz ordered 110 bottles of hydrogen to fill home-made plastic balloons. When the balloons would not inflate, they crossed the fences in thick fog: five made it, and the father of one family was shot and caught at the last fence.
27 October 1968
The guards couldn't open their window: folding-ladder escape at Schönholzer Straße
At 1 a.m. a man with a folding ladder crossed every barrier; by the time the Ruppiner Straße tower crew had smashed the window they could not open and fired, he was in the West.
29 October 1968
After a night of drinking, a deputy company commander climbs out with a painter's ladder
Facing a dressing-down for a drunken farewell party, the deputy commander and party secretary of a border company crawled through the compound fence, took a painter's ladder from a house and climbed into West Berlin in uniform with his pistol.
29 October 1968
The boat commander who went ashore at the fairy-tale garden
On a patrol along the Havel at Sacrow, a boat commander asked to land to relieve himself – right where the land border met the water – went ashore and did not come back.
15 November 1968
Deserting policeman and border soldier die near Klein Glienicke
A 21-year-old Volkspolizist deserting towards West Berlin opened fire on a border patrol vehicle in Babelsberg Park, killing driver Rolf Henniger, and was himself shot dead by the patrol leader.
10 January 1969
A kick through the glass wall at Friedrichstraße
Shortly after midnight a man kicked in a glass panel of the partition at Friedrichstraße station and got into the hall where the trains to West Berlin left, but he was arrested on the next westbound train.
9 April 1969
Johannes Lange shot at the last wall on Adalbertstraße
Decorative painter Johannes Lange was killed just short of the final concrete wall on Adalbertstraße after eight border guards fired 148 rounds.
1 May 1969
May Day: a train driver and conductor take an empty train to the West
On 1 May 1969 an East German train driver and a woman conductor drove an empty train of Berlin's elevated railway to a West Berlin stop, got out and asked for political asylum.
7 July 1969
The 'Trojan cow' at Drewitz
A 28-year-old woman from Karl-Marx-Stadt was hidden inside a hollow model bull in a wooden crate, but the hiding place was found at the Drewitz crossing.
13 September 1969
Klaus-Jürgen Kluge shot on the crest of the Wall
Facing military service he loathed, Klaus-Jürgen Kluge tried to climb the Wall near the Bornholmer Straße crossing and was shot as he lay on its crest.
20 September 1969
Leo Lis shot near the Nordbahnhof
Leo Lis, a 45-year-old dairy worker from Saxony, had already crossed several barriers near the Nordbahnhof when border guards opened fire; he died of a chest wound.
19 October 1969
Two East Germans force a Polish airliner to land at Tegel
Two young East Germans forced the pilots of a Polish Ilyushin 18, flying from Warsaw to East Berlin, to land at Tegel in the French sector of West Berlin, where they asked for political asylum.
24 October 1969
35 shots at Karl-Heinz Br. and Gerd W. in the cemetery strip
Two men crawling across the control strip were spotted from the Ackerstraße watchtower; the guards fired 35 rounds, and both were arrested unhurt behind the vehicle barrier.
November 1969
Detlef Hubert Peuker over the Wall from a Bernauer Straße yard
In November 1969 the 16-year-old Detlef Hubert Peuker, who had scouted a building on Bernauer Straße during a visit to Berlin, got over the border installations from its yard into West Berlin.
24 November 1969
Two men shot trying to reach the American sector on one day
On 24 November 1969 East German guards shot two men in separate attempts to cross into West Berlin's American sector: a border guard trying to scale the Wall, and a youth fired on with a machine gun in the fortified strip.
10 March 1970
Christel and Eckhard Wehage's attempted hijacking of an Interflug plane
A young couple tried to force an Interflug An-24 on a domestic flight to fly to Hanover. The crew secretly turned back to Schönefeld; as the plane landed, Christel and Eckhard Wehage took their own lives.
21 March 1970
A 22-year-old is shot in the leg at Strelitzer Straße
A young man got almost to the foot of the Wall before the Strelitzer Straße watchtower spotted him; two aimed shots stopped him, one hitting his right leg.
5 April 1970
A man stopped at the last obstacle before the Wall, 5 April 1970
On 5 April 1970 an East German motorised patrol stopped a man trying to escape over the Wall into West Berlin as he reached the last steel obstacle; the guards beat him with their rifles, West Berlin police reported.
May 1970
The 85-metre tunnel from Bernauer Straße 80, dug out by the Stasi
Eight years after a 1962 tunnel attempt from Bernauer Straße 82, a new tunnel was begun at Bernauer Straße 80; after a tip-off and listening probes the Stasi exposed it by cross-trenching in May 1970, when it was already 85 metres long.
7 July 1970
Willi Born – a young soldier's flight ends in the Bergfelde woods
Nineteen-year-old conscript Willi Born left his unit and tried to reach West Berlin near Bergfelde; when border soldiers cornered him in a strip of woodland he took his own life.
14 November 1970 – 17 November 1970
Hans-Joachim Zock – a planned swim across the Spree
After years of Stasi suspicion, Hans-Joachim Zock travelled from Halle to East Berlin in November 1970 intending to swim the Spree to the West; he drowned, and his body was found weeks later.
25 December 1970
Christian Peter Friese shot on Christmas night at Köllnische Heide
On Christmas Eve 1970 a 22-year-old mechanic from Naumburg travelled to East Berlin and, around midnight, entered the border strip at Johannisthal. Five guards fired 98 shots; he died a few metres short of the last fence.
7 January 1971
Rolf-Dieter Kabelitz – shot in the snow at Bergfelde
A 19-year-old from Potsdam set off a border alarm at Bergfelde on a snowy January night in 1971, turned back when tracking dogs were set on him, and was shot while hiding behind a tree. He died of his wounds 23 days later under Stasi guard in hospital.
February 1971
Tunnel 71 – The Last Tunnel under Bernauer Straße
Hasso Herschel's team lived underground for nine weeks digging a tunnel beneath Bernauer Straße, but came within ten metres of their goal before GDR border troops dug it up.
22 February 1971
75 shots miss – and the escaper is caught in a hallway on Provinzstraße
A bricklayer got through every barrier to within three metres of the Wall at Schönholz. Guards fired 75 rounds without hitting him; he turned back and was caught by police in a hallway.
4 April 1971
Two youths climb the Wall
On 4 April 1971 two East German youths climbed the Berlin Wall and fled to the West, West Berlin police reported.
15 June 1971
A councillor, his wife and two small sons climb the Wall at Klein Glienicke with a fruit ladder
On the night the SED's VIII Party Congress opened, an NDPD town councillor and trainee editor, his wife and their sons aged two and a half years and six months climbed the Klein Glienicke wall with a neighbour's fruit ladder in pouring rain.
4 July 1971
An off-duty lieutenant climbs out at Stolpe-Süd
A platoon leader of the border troops, born in 1946, went home after a dance, then climbed the Wall in the Stolpe-Süd section, where he lived, with a wooden ladder while guards fired 20 shots.
23 July 1971
Shots stop an escape at Brunnenstraße
At about 3.20 a.m. on 23 July 1971 border guards fired on a man trying to escape at Brunnenstraße and arrested him.
24 July 1971
A Danish tour guide, a doctored passport and a 16-year-old from Rostock
A Copenhagen tour guide tried to take a 16-year-old from Rostock through the Friedrichstraße crossing on a doctored Danish passport and was caught in the act.
22 August 1971
Three Leipzig youths over the fence at Kleinmachnow
Four friends from Leipzig cut their way through the signal fence at Kleinmachnow; three climbed the expanded-metal fence in their socks and reached West Berlin, the fourth was caught.
9 September 1971
A circus hand runs for the Wall near the Sonnenallee crossing
After an evening in the pubs of Baumschulenweg, a circus worker climbed the hinterland fence off the Heidekampweg; guards fired 43 rounds and wounded him in the hip and knees.
21 September 1971 – 22 September 1971
Three East Germans slip across unnoticed
In the night of 21 to 22 September 1971 three East Germans crossed the fortified border into West Berlin without being noticed.
26 September 1971
Man shot halfway across the Wall; bullets hit a West Berlin house
Early on 26 September 1971 guards shot and apparently wounded a man of about 30 whom they caught halfway across the Wall in the American sector; some bullets hit a house on the West Berlin side.
1 December 1971
Two border guards take a patrol boat across the Spree
In December 1971 two 20-year-old GDR border guards disarmed a comrade, took the patrol boat moored at Mühlenstraße and crossed the Spree to Kreuzberg in broad daylight.
31 December 1971
Horst Kullack shot on New Year's Eve at Großziethen
On New Year's Eve 1971 Horst Kullack climbed the rear fence at Großziethen and reached the border wall before guards shot him without warning. He died of his wounds three weeks later.
1972
Hidden in a freighter's ballast room from Magdeburg to West Berlin
In 1972 a person got aboard a cargo ship in Magdeburg and was hidden by the crew in the ballast room until the ship reached West Berlin; the ZZF counts it among the escapes known despite the checks at the Nedlitz water crossing.
9 January 1972
The heaters' tunnel under the Zimmerstraße
Two brothers and a friend dug a short tunnel from the sealed border cellars of an East Berlin electricity-company building near Checkpoint Charlie and came up just beyond the Wall.
14 February 1972
Manfred Weylandt – shot in the Spree
Stoker Manfred Weylandt crossed the border installations and entered the Spree near the Schillingbrücke late at night; two guards shot him in the head and he drowned.
7 March 1972
Klaus Schulze killed, Dieter Krause escapes at Falkenhöh
Two young friends from Falkensee crossed the border strip at Falkenhöh with a ladder from a garden shed. Dieter Krause got over the last fence under fire; Klaus Schulze, who had tripped, was shot in the chest.
9 June 1972 – 10 June 1972
A 15-year-old crosses the Wall into Neukölln
In the night of 9 to 10 June 1972 a 15-year-old East German boy crossed the Wall into Neukölln, apparently unseen by the guards, and was reunited with relatives in the West.
11 June 1972
An 18-year-old flees through automatic fire unhurt
On 11 June 1972 an 18-year-old East German fled through automatic-weapon fire from the border guards and reached West Berlin unhurt.
5 October 1972
A West Berlin police sergeant with a woman under his back seat
Shortly after midnight a West Berliner tried to drive a mother of four from Oberschöneweide out under the back seat of his car. Only when he was identified did the Stasi realise he was a serving West Berlin police officer.
6 October 1972
Over the waterworks wall and onto the Schillingbrücke – 46 shots
A circus worker climbed the wall of the waterworks on Holzmarktstraße and the fence at the Schillingbrücke, and tried to cross the bridge. Guards fired 46 rounds; he collapsed about 30 metres past the bridge with life-threatening internal injuries.
8 October 1972 – 9 October 1972
Two cars stopped in one night at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Within three hours GDR controllers at the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing stopped two cars. In one was a schoolgirl from Lichtenberg, born in 1956, with four West German helpers; the other carried a lathe operator born in 1949 and a couple from Hamburg.
14 October 1972
A head waiter hidden in a car trailer at Drewitz
Two West German helpers, one a Free University student, tried to bring a head waiter from Friedrichshagen, born in 1927, into West Berlin hidden in a single-axle car trailer. The Stasi says the pair had already smuggled out several people over the transit routes.
29 December 1972
Ellen Thiemann's escape car stopped at the border
The journalist Ellen Thiemann planned to leave the GDR with her eleven-year-old son Carsten in a specially prepared car. On 29 December 1972 she and her husband were arrested and she was later sentenced to three years and five months; after the Wall fell she learned from her Stasi files that her husband had been an informer.
22 January 1973
15-month-old Holger H. suffocates during his parents' escape
A young couple hid with their baby son in crates on a West Berlin acquaintance's truck. They passed the Drewitz checkpoint undetected, but when the crates were opened in the West, 15-month-old Holger was no longer breathing.
1 March 1973 – 5 March 1973
Volker Frommann jumps from a moving S-Bahn near the border
Shortly after midnight on 1 March 1973 Volker Frommann, born in 1944 in Thuringia, jumped out of a moving S-Bahn train about 50 metres from the border strip in Pankow, probably meaning to get through to West Berlin there. He died of his injuries four days later.
15 March 1973
Horst Einsiedel shot on a ladder at Pankow cemetery
Engineer Horst Einsiedel used two ladders from a cemetery tool shed to cross the fences at Pankow and was shot from a watchtower as he climbed the last wall. The Stasi hid his death from his wife for months.
27 April 1973
Manfred Gertzki's armoured escape attempt at the Reichstag
Wearing a home-made bulletproof vest and a steel-masked helmet, engineer Manfred Gertzki crept along the Spree bank by the Reichstag. He was shot two metres from the demarcation line and pushed into the river, where the armour dragged him down.
8 July 1973
Three East Germans stopped by machine-pistol fire opposite the Märkisches Viertel
Just after détente had been celebrated in Helsinki, border guards stopped three East Germans at the Wall facing the Märkisches Viertel with several machine-pistol bursts and arrested them; angry West Berlin residents tore out a fence patching a hole in the Wall and set tyres on fire.
20 July 1973 – 21 July 1973
Klaus Gomert at the Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark – shot at, arrested, then expelled to the West
In the night of 19–20 July 1973 East Berlin border guards fired bursts at a person presumably trying to escape by the Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. On 21 July East Berlin police released 18-year-old Klaus Gomert to West Berlin, and ADN claimed he was the would-be escaper – Gomert contradicted parts of the East German account.
26 July 1973
The Klein Glienicke Family Tunnel
Two brothers, their wives and five children escaped from the GDR exclave of Klein Glienicke through a 19-metre tunnel dug with a child's spade during a heatwave.
16 September 1973
Guards fire on two men at the Wall a day after another arrest
Early on 16 September 1973 East German guards foiled an attempt by two men to cross the Wall, firing at least four shots; the day before, guards had arrested another man trying to escape.
25 September 1973
Thirty rounds at four escapers opposite Kohlhasenbrück
On the evening of 25 September 1973 East German border guards fired about thirty rounds at four people apparently trying to cross into the American sector opposite Kohlhasenbrück. The four were led away; several bullets hit apartments on the West Berlin side.
31 October 1973
Juergen Vicari tries to walk through Checkpoint Charlie in a US Army uniform
On 31 October 1973 East German guards at Checkpoint Charlie detained a man seen in US uniform with sergeant's stripes. According to his fiancée he was Juergen Vicari, an East Berlin actor who had planned to walk out through the checkpoint that day.
14 December 1973
Klaus-Peter K. is caught on the patrol road
Klaus-Peter K. got over the inner wall and the signal fence at Brunnenstraße but was arrested at the patrol road.
15 December 1973
Four East Berliners in the cabinets of a US soldiers' VW bus
On 15 December 1973 a doctor, his wife, their small child and another woman crossed Checkpoint Charlie hidden in cabinets inside a Volkswagen bus with US Army number plates. The East German guards missed them; US military police found them on the western side.
5 January 1974
Burkhard Niering's hostage escape attempt at Checkpoint Charlie
Burkhard Niering, a conscript in the Volkspolizei alert units, left his guard post with his submachine gun, took a Stasi passport controller hostage at Checkpoint Charlie and tried to push through to the West. He was shot at the last barrier.
18 January 1974
Karl-Heinz M. is caught past the inner wall
Karl-Heinz M. had climbed the inner wall and probably the signal fence before border soldiers arrested him in the strip.
16 February 1974
A stranger in US uniform is held back at Checkpoint Charlie
At midday on 16 February 1974 two men in US Army uniform walked towards Checkpoint Charlie from the East. One was a US military policeman; the other, who had fallen in beside him, could show no ID and speak no English, and East German guards took him away.
29 March 1974
Czesław Kukuczka: an exit visa, then a shot in the back at Friedrichstraße
A Polish fireman threatened to blow up the Polish embassy in East Berlin unless he was let through to West Berlin. He was given an exit visa and taken to the Friedrichstraße crossing by a Stasi officer, then shot in the back during the clearance procedure and bled to death in the Stasi prison hospital.
30 June 1974
A jump from a moving S-Bahn at Bornholmer Straße
An East Berlin lorry driver tried to jump from a moving S-Bahn where the tracks ran through the border strip at Bornholmer Straße; he fractured the base of his skull and was arrested by border troops.
10 September 1974 – 17 September 1974
A US soldier is stopped at Checkpoint Charlie with two East Germans
On the night of 10 September 1974 East Berlin guards stopped a US Army specialist's private car at Checkpoint Charlie and led a woman away from it. The Soviets held the soldier for a week and said he had tried to smuggle two GDR citizens into West Berlin.
13 October 1974
Felled by a single aimed shot opposite Neukölln
On a Sunday afternoon in October 1974 West Berlin police watched a young man approach the Wall opposite Neukölln. An East German guard knelt and brought him down with one aimed shot; he was carried away, apparently wounded.
1975
Peuker's brother hidden in the tank of a converted car at Drewitz
In the mid-1970s Detlef Hubert Peuker, who had himself escaped in 1969, helped smuggle his brother out of the GDR through the Drewitz–Dreilinden crossing, hidden in the tank of a converted car.
1 February 1975
The Swiss embassy cook's Mini: caught at Bornholmer Straße
A young Swiss cook at the Swiss embassy in East Berlin had already taken his East Berlin girlfriend to the Kurfürstendamm and back in the boot of his Mini. On 1 February 1975, after two Stasi informers had reported on him, the boot was opened at Bornholmer Straße.
4 March 1975
Escape helper Hartmut Richter caught at Drewitz with his sister in the boot
After smuggling 33 people out in the boot of his car, escape helper Hartmut Richter was stopped at the Drewitz crossing with his own sister and her fiancé hidden inside, and sentenced to 15 years.
9 March 1975
A family of three in the boot of a West Berlin car at Drewitz
Three members of one family lay hidden in the boot of a car with West Berlin plates. At the Drewitz crossing the Stasi found them, arrested them and then made them climb back in so the scene could be photographed.
3 April 1975
Herbert Halli shot while turning back at Zimmerstraße
After a drinking session on the Palast der Republik building site, 21-year-old Herbert Halli climbed into the border strip at Zimmerstraße. He had already turned back when a guard shot him in the back.
30 May 1975
A doctor's family in the boot of a US sergeant's Cadillac
On the evening of 30 May 1975 a US Army staff sergeant drove an East German doctor, his wife and son through Checkpoint Charlie in the boot of his 1969 Cadillac. The East German guards apparently noticed nothing; US military police found the family and took the sergeant into custody on the western side.
27 June 1975
Herbert Kiebler shot near Mahlow; death disguised as suicide
Shortly after midnight on 27 June 1975 Herbert Kiebler crossed the signal fence near Mahlow and was shot from about 100 metres as he left the vehicle trench. The Stasi told his family he had killed himself in a forest near Potsdam.
15 August 1975
A pregnant woman and her husband behind the back seat of a US sergeant's Chevrolet
Late on 15 August 1975 a US Army sergeant brought an East German couple, the wife pregnant, through Checkpoint Charlie in a hollowed-out space between the back seat and the boot of his Chevrolet. The East German guards looked closely but let him pass; US military police found the couple.
21 November 1975
Thirty rounds near the Waßmannsdorfer Chaussee
On the evening of 21 November 1975 two Kreuzberg residents saw an East German guard fire about 30 rounds from an automatic weapon at an unarmed man apparently trying to cross from the Schönefeld area into the American sector. He lay still for ten minutes before a military vehicle took him away.
4 February 1976
Look-alikes for hire: the Dawid organisation's couriers arrested in Potsdam
Three West Berliners went into the GDR as tourists. They were to hand their own identity papers, clothes and handbags to two East Germans, who would then leave through the Invalidenstraße crossing as their look-alikes. The Stasi arrested them in Potsdam.
10 April 1976
Refugees in the boot of an embassy car: the Zaire attaché and the ARAMCO network
An administrative attaché of Zaire's embassy in East Berlin used his diplomatic car to drive at least eight East Germans to West Berlin in the boot. The operation ended when his courier was arrested at the Friedrichstraße crossing.
July 1976
Marina Prüfer and her son in a car boot
In July 1976 Marina Prüfer, a building draughtswoman from Neuenhagen whose exit application had put her under Stasi surveillance, reached West Berlin with her four-year-old son in the boot of a West German car.
16 July 1976
Sealed van of the Mierendorff escape organisation stopped at Staaken
An escape helper from near Hamburg picked up a man, his wife and a drugged child on the transit motorway and hid them in a customs-sealed van with a manipulated seal fitting; followed by two Wartburgs, he was stopped at the Staaken crossing and the van was opened.
27 August 1976
A home-made ladder from the garden at Am Böttcherberg
A painter, his wife and their four-year-old child cut through the rear fence opposite their garden in the Klein Glienicke enclave and climbed the 3.5 m Wall with a ladder they had built themselves.
16 February 1977
Dietmar Schwietzer killed near Schönwalde
An 18-year-old from Magdeburg got through several border fences at Schönwalde but was killed by gunfire a few metres from the Wall; four guards fired 91 rounds.
May 1977
A former border officer helps Rainer P. over the Wall and is caught
Having reconnoitred the border, the pair crossed every barrier from a back yard on Kremmener Straße; Uwe W. boosted Rainer P. over the Wall and was then arrested at its foot.
May 1977 – 27 July 1977
Henri Weise found drowned in the Spree at the Marschallbrücke
A 22-year-old from Thuringia whose applications to leave the GDR had been refused left his father's East Berlin flat on 17 May 1977 and never came back. Two months later his body was found in the Spree water barrier at the Marschallbrücke; he had probably tried to swim to West Berlin.
May 1977
Emergency brake by the Wall at Bornholmer Straße
An East Berlin youth pulled the emergency brake of a train passing near the Bornholmer Straße crossing point, jumped to the Wall and scrambled over it into West Berlin.
21 September 1977
Two brothers in the luggage hold of a French army tour bus
On 21 September 1977 two young East German brothers crawled into the unlocked luggage hold of a French military tour bus parked at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park, and rode in it to West Berlin.
2 October 1977
Two young women in a car boot at Staaken
A West Berliner working for an escape-helper group tried to take two women in their early twenties out in his boot through the Staaken crossing – one of them the daughter of an SED factory director, who wanted to marry her Turkish boyfriend in West Berlin.
15 November 1977
In a US Air Force uniform at Checkpoint Charlie
An East Berlin electrician who wanted to work as a musician in the West tried to leave through Checkpoint Charlie dressed as a US Air Force NCO, driven there by the American sergeant who had supplied the uniform, but was recognised and arrested by the Stasi.
22 April 1978
A 19-year-old reaches Staaken with a bullet wound in his hand
In the early hours of 22 April 1978 a 19-year-old East German turned up at the S-Bahn station in Staaken with a gunshot wound in his hand. He told police he had been fired on as he crossed the border.
June 1978
Two East Germans escape in a Belgian diplomat's car
In June 1978 two East Germans who had befriended a Belgian diplomat in East Berlin knocked him out, altered his identity papers and drove his diplomatic car into West Berlin.
11 June 1978 – 17 June 1978
Two guards in one week dart through the Fichtewiese gate
West Berlin allotment holders reached their gardens in the Fichtewiese exclave through a gate in the Wall, with GDR guards checking their passes. On 11 and 17 June 1978 two of those guards simply ran through the door into the British sector.
July 1978
Three students disguised as a border patrol climb the Wall on folding ladders
Three East German students got into the death strip in a car with military markings; the two men, disguised as border guards, climbed the Wall on folding ladders they had brought, and the woman had come in hidden in the back of the car.
30 August 1978
LOT Flight 165: East Germans divert a Polish airliner to Tempelhof
When a plan to leave via Poland with forged papers fell through, two East Germans hijacked the LOT airliner flying from Gdańsk to East Berlin-Schönefeld and forced it down at Tempelhof in West Berlin.
7 October 1978
Eva Röser in the petrol-tank space of a Lotus Seven
A pregnant 27-year-old East Berliner was driven through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing by her West German boyfriend, hidden in the cavity left by the removed petrol tank of his Lotus Seven.
18 January 1979 – 19 January 1979
Stasi officer Werner Stiller walks out through the Friedrichstraße agents' gate
After breaking open safes at Stasi headquarters, First Lieutenant Werner Stiller of the foreign intelligence service used his service pass to get through the Stasi's own border gate at Friedrichstraße station and rode the U-Bahn into West Berlin.
July 1979
Kerstin Land and her partner in a car boot
In July 1979 Kerstin Land, a Leipzig student watched by the Stasi after a leaflet action over Wolf Biermann's expatriation, reached West Berlin with her partner in the boot of a West German car.
25 August 1979
The US ambassador's chauffeur smuggles his family out in the official car
Joerg Habermann, an East German driver assigned to the US ambassador in East Berlin, hid his wife and six-year-old daughter in the boot of the ambassador's car, drove them through Checkpoint Charlie, went back to work – and walked across to the West himself that evening.
30 November 1979
Mario E. gets away from the guards, then is caught by the police
Spotted by border troops at Wolliner Straße at 2 a.m., Mario E. got away, but the People's Police arrested him half an hour later in Eberswalder Straße.
19 December 1979 – 20 December 1979
Two young men climb the Wall
In the night of 19 to 20 December 1979 two young men climbed over the Berlin Wall from the East, West Berlin police reported.
February 1980
Two printers saw through a window and scale the Wall with grappling hooks
Two East German printers sawed through an iron-barred window in their newspaper building and climbed the Berlin Wall with grappling hooks and a rope, police said in February 1980.
8 March 1980
Hitch-hiking on the U8
An East Berlin U-Bahn signal mechanic led three relatives through a disused connecting tunnel to the West Berlin U8 line, stopped a western train with his signal lamp and asked for a lift.
25 April 1980
Martin M. reaches the watchtower at Ackerstraße
A day after quitting his job, Martin M. climbed the inner wall at Ackerstraße and got as far as the watchtower before he was arrested.
7 September 1980
Two East Germans escape over the Wall under fire, 7 September 1980
On 7 September 1980 two East Germans escaped over the Berlin Wall under fire from an East German border guard, the West Berlin police said.
4 November 1980
Egon B.'s desertion and the death of Ulrich Steinhauer
Border soldier Egon B. disconnected the border communication system, shot his patrol leader Ulrich Steinhauer and climbed the Wall from the saddle of his service bicycle into Spandau; a West Berlin court later convicted him of manslaughter.
22 November 1980
Marienetta Jirkowsky shot from a ladder at Hohen Neuendorf
18-year-old Marienetta Jirkowsky and two friends climbed the border barriers with a ladder; the two young men reached West Berlin, but she was shot as her hands reached the top of the Wall.
December 1980 – 9 February 1981
Peter Grohganz drowns in the winter Spree
On 9 February 1981 a GDR border boat found a body caught in a water barrier in the Spree east of the Oberbaumbrücke. It was Peter Grohganz, 32, from Premnitz, who had disappeared in December 1980; earlier that year he had asked to leave the GDR and then withdrawn the request.
14 April 1981
Hans-Jürgen Starrost shot during capture at Sigridshorst
Facing a return to prison, 25-year-old Hans-Jürgen Starrost tried to climb into the border area at Teltow with a ladder. Caught and held, he was shot in the abdomen at close range and died a month later.
26 May 1981
A Costa Rican diplomat's Ford Escort at Checkpoint Charlie
A urologist from San José who had studied medicine in Halle tried to use his diplomatic passport to drive an East German woman out in his boot – for a promised 10,000 Deutschmarks.
28 June 1981 – 29 June 1981
An Erfurt dentist family in a US Army Ford – the six-hour stand-off at Drewitz
Two US soldiers picked up two dentists from Erfurt and their ten-year-old son on the transit motorway. At Drewitz the Soviet commander refused to let the car through; after more than four hours of negotiation the American commander agreed to a joint check of the car.
1 August 1981
A walkie-talkie from West Berlin: the planned break-out at Stolpe-Süd
A 22-year-old East Berlin window cleaner was to cross at Stolpe-Süd on a radio command from West Berlin, through barriers that West Berliners had already damaged – and the crossing was to be filmed. The Stasi arrested him first.
12 December 1981
Thomas Taubmann jumps from a freight train under the Bösebrücke
On the evening of 12 December 1981 Thomas Taubmann climbed onto a freight train leaving Pankow and jumped off beneath the Bösebrücke, right at the border. He was found dead on the tracks.
19 January 1982
A bucket, the S-Bahn tracks and the bridge over the Gartenstraße
An unknown person stood a bucket against the rear wall in a Mitte back yard, climbed onto the tracks of the North-South S-Bahn and walked across the railway bridge into Wedding.
3 March 1982
Emergency brake and ladder south of the Bösebrücke
Two men pulled the emergency brake of an S-Bahn train on the curve at Bornholmer Straße, got out and climbed the border barriers into Wedding with a ladder.
22 April 1982
The Abandoned Sigridshorst Tunnel
A train driver and his wife dug 17 metres of tunnel from their cellar but gave up with the border still several hundred metres away; a later balloon plan was betrayed and both were imprisoned.
25 April 1982
Two dentists and their son in the boot of a US Army Volvo
Two American soldiers picked up a dentist couple from Cottbus and their four-year-old son at a transit car park and hid them in the boot. The GDR had noticed – and the Soviets held the car at Drewitz until the US military police opened the boot.
31 March 1983
Holger Bethke and Michael Becker slide over the Wall on a steel cable
Using a bow and arrow to shoot a line over the border strip, Holger Bethke and his friend Michael Becker rigged a steel cable and rode home-made pulleys over the Wall from Treptow.
27 May 1983
The S-Bahn hijacking at Friedrichstraße
A 24-year-old forced his way into an S-Bahn driver's cab with an air rifle and tried to make the train run on into West Berlin; it stopped short of a buffer stop and he was overpowered by officers of the passport control unit.
28 July 1983
Stolen tipper truck at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
A 21-year-old postal driver stole a KrAZ tipper truck and smashed through the gates of the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing, but was stopped by the roll barrier.
2 September 1983
Two young men from Prenzlauer Berg cross the Wall with a window-cleaner's ladder
After an evening in a Prenzlauer Berg pub, two young men went onto the grounds of the Volkspolizei hospital, where one of them worked as a cleaner, and climbed the border barriers with his cleaning ladder while guards opened fire.
10 November 1983
Ronni S. and the painter's ladder
Ronni S. tried to get over the Wall with a painter's stepladder and was arrested in the border strip.
23 December 1983
Two border guards meant to watch each other swim the Teltow Canal together
At about 1 a.m. on 23 December 1983 two East German border guards, paired so that each could watch the other, swam the Teltow Canal in uniform to a suburb in the American sector. They flagged down a car and were driven to a café, from where they called the police.
25 December 1983
Silvio Proksch shot on Christmas Day at Pankow cemetery
On Christmas evening 1983 the 21-year-old bricklayer climbed the cemetery fence into the border strip without any plan and was shot; he bled to death before he received treatment.
8 April 1984
Watchtower fire at Neukölln: one of two climbers gets over
Late on Sunday 8 April 1984 East German guards fired on two men scrambling over the Wall at Neukölln; a 20-year-old reached the West, but his companion, caught with him on top of the Wall, did not.
2 June 1984
Trabant against the Staaken barrier
A 38-year-old driver tried to force his Trabant through the Staaken crossing but crashed into a heavy barrier at the passport control line.
24 July 1984
Ladder escape at Brunnenstraße despite an aimed shot
An unknown man climbed the inner wall with a ladder, set off the alarm cutting the signal fence, and got over the Wall after the Schönholzer Straße tower fired a warning shot and a missed aimed shot.
24 October 1984
Two hang gliders on a tower-block roof in the Leipziger Straße
Two men carried two home-built hang gliders up to the roof of a Leipziger Straße tower block, changed the lock on the roof door and tried to launch towards West Berlin. The wind was wrong, they gave up and left, leaving the gliders behind.
27 October 1984
A window cleaner's hang glider, carried to night practice by public transport
A 26-year-old glass and building cleaner built two hang gliders, practised at night on the edge of Berlin and scouted the Leipziger Straße tower blocks as a launch site. A tip from the public about glider parts stored in an attic led to his arrest.
1 December 1984
Michael Schmidt shot at Schulzestraße
A 20-year-old carpenter used ladders from his worksite to climb into the border strip at Schulzestraße; shot in the back and knee, he waited almost an hour for an ambulance and died in hospital.
14 July 1985
Ladder escape from Kleinmachnow
An 18-year-old used a ladder at Erlenweg in Kleinmachnow to get into the death strip and crossed every barrier under fire; a Stasi report blamed a lamp that kept going dark for 30 seconds.
19 September 1985
A water police officer sails his patrol boat to the West
In September 1985 a GDR water police officer slipped away from his colleagues, boarded his service boat, faked a routine patrol and motored across the water border to West Berlin.
17 January 1986
Telecom fitter runs through Checkpoint Charlie
A 21-year-old East Berlin telecommunications fitter, installing surveillance cameras at Checkpoint Charlie, used an unguarded moment to run through the control area to West Berlin.
20 January 1986
"Ladder of success" at Glienicke/Nordbahn
Shortly after midnight a man used a two-metre ladder to climb the rear wall at Glienicke/Nordbahn, set off the signal fence, ran the last 17 metres and used the same ladder to get over the final wall — the guards never saw him.
27 January 1986
Frank K. is caught at the signal fence
An applicant for an exit visa who worked near the border prepared tools and a change of trousers, got over the inner wall, and was arrested climbing the signal fence.
August 1986
A teenage couple climbs the Wall with fence boards and swims the Spree
In August 1986 an East Berlin apprentice bricklayer and his 17-year-old girlfriend used parts of a wooden fence to climb the Wall on the eastern bank of the Spree and swam the short distance to West Berlin. The escape was kept secret until September so the route could stay open.
17 August 1986
Two border guards climb the Wall at Groß Ziethen and celebrate in a West Berlin tavern
Days after the Wall's 25th anniversary, two East German border guards left their watchtower, helped each other up the Wall between Groß Ziethen and Neukölln, threw their guns back into the East and went to a West Berlin tavern.
29 August 1986
Gravel truck through Checkpoint Charlie
Truck driver Hans-Joachim Pofahl, his partner and their eight-month-old baby smashed through Checkpoint Charlie in a truck loaded with five tonnes of gravel.
2 September 1986
Over the rear wall and across the Bösebrücke
A janitor and an assistant bricklayer climbed into the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint area with a ladder, got into the diplomats' lane and simply walked across the Bösebrücke — guards who saw them assumed they had been cleared.
3 September 1986
Sacrower See – one friend makes it, Rainer Liebeke drowns
Rainer Liebeke and his friend Dirk K. tried to swim about 500 metres across the Sacrower See; the friend reached West Berlin, but Liebeke, still recovering from a broken collarbone, drowned.
10 September 1986
A car rams the closed gate at Drewitz
At about 2.20 a.m. two people drove a car into a closed gate at the Drewitz crossing. Guards fired warning shots and arrested both, as lorry drivers arriving in West Berlin reported.
24 September 1986
Three young people swim the Teltow Canal
Shortly after 2 a.m. three young people used a wooden ladder to scale the barriers in Teltow and swam the 40-metre-wide Teltow Canal to Zehlendorf, helped by a guard's lost magazine.
27 September 1986
A tower guard climbs the fence at the Spree behind the Reichstag
At midday on a Saturday a 22-year-old East German soldier on watch near the Brandenburg Gate slipped away while his partner was briefly gone and climbed a metal fence on the Spree behind the Reichstag into West Berlin.
27 September 1986
Lada crash at Chausseestraße
Two young East Berliners drove a Lada through the gate at Chausseestraße at 80 km/h but crashed into a barrier and were jailed for over four years.
8 October 1986
A landscape architect dives through the Jungfernsee barrier
A 29-year-old landscape architect in a diving suit slipped through a corroded gap in the underwater barrier at Nedlitz and swam to West Berlin north of the Glienicker Brücke.
30 October 1986
Two East Germans climb the barriers at Checkpoint Charlie and are caught
On Thursday 30 October 1986 two East Germans tried to reach West Berlin by climbing over the barriers at Checkpoint Charlie. East German border guards took them away after a brief struggle.
19 November 1986
Dieter H.'s folding-ladder escape under fire
A toolmaker who had been refused permission to emigrate and jailed for two years built a small collapsible ladder, cut through the signal fence at Brunnenstraße and got over the 3.6-metre Wall while twelve shots were fired at him.
19 November 1986
Volkmar Kienöl and Klaus Kuschmierz try to glide to the Springer building
Two young men spent a night on the roof of a Leipziger Straße tower block beside two home-made hang gliders, planning to land in front of the Axel Springer building in West Berlin just 200 metres away. They came down short of the Wall.
21 November 1986
Manfred Mäder and René Gross – lifting-platform truck at Karpfenteichstraße
Two East Berliners who had applied to leave the GDR drove a stolen truck with a lifting platform through a gate in the rear border wall in Treptow. Border guards opened continuous fire and both men were killed.
24 November 1986
Michael Bittner shot at Glienicke/Nordbahn
The 25-year-old climbed the inner wall with a wooden ladder and was shot in the back as he reached the final wall; the Stasi then erased almost every trace of his death.
2 December 1986
One gets over, one is caught: Mahlow to Lichtenrade
Two workmates from Beelitz helped each other over the barriers at Mahlow-Waldblick; the 22-year-old made it over the three-metre Wall into Lichtenrade while his 18-year-old companion was arrested.
10 December 1986
A 22-year-old climbs the border fence into Kreuzberg
Late on Wednesday 10 December 1986 a 22-year-old East German climbed over the fortified border fence into West Berlin's Kreuzberg district and escaped unharmed.
20 December 1986
Failed motorised hang-glider escape near Potsdam
A 37-year-old toolmaker took off in a home-built motorised hang glider towards West Berlin, but poor visibility, disorientation and the cold forced him down in the GDR.
12 February 1987
Lutz Schmidt shot helping his friend over the Wall
Truck drivers Lutz Schmidt and Peter Schulze drove to the border with ladders; Schmidt helped his colleague onto the Wall and was shot dead as he tried to follow.
May 1987
Thomas Mahler gives his passport to an East Berlin youth
In May 1987 Thomas Mahler, a law student from Wiesbaden visiting East Berlin with his scout group, gave his passport to a young East Berliner who looked like him. The youth got out; Mahler was arrested at the border when he tried to report his passport missing.
4 May 1987
Two men flee over the Wall into Lübars a day before their army call-up
On 4 May 1987 two East Germans aged 23 and 26, due to be inducted into the army the next day, climbed over the Wall into the rural Lübars area of West Berlin while shots were fired. Both arrived unhurt.
July 1987
Jens Bernhardt waits until his partner falls asleep and climbs the fence into Spandau
In July 1987 a young conscript border guard hid his sleeping tower partner's ammunition at 3 a.m., climbed down and pulled himself over the steel-mesh fence into Spandau with metal hooks. He later spoke publicly about how the shoot-to-kill order was applied.
6 July 1987
A border guard in camouflage runs through the Spandau forest under fire
On Monday 6 July 1987 an East German border guard in a camouflage suit ran through the Spandau forest in north-west Berlin and reached West Berlin, dodging about 30 rounds of gunfire.
15 July 1987
18-year-old flies a light aircraft from Potsdam to RAF Gatow
On only his second solo flight, 18-year-old Thomas K. took off in a single-engine plane south of Potsdam and landed at the British airfield in Gatow.
18 August 1987
Dogs, three shots and an arrest at the Sonnenallee crossing
Early on 18 August 1987 West Berlin police and customs officers at the Sonnenallee crossing heard dogs barking and three shots on the East Berlin side, then saw border guards lead away a man who had tried to escape. The three Western commandants protested the use of force.
25 September 1987
A couple's dump truck sticks in the barriers opposite Zehlendorf – and a friend films it
On the evening of 25 September 1987 a young woman and a man tried to break through the border opposite Zehlendorf with a truck. The attempt failed and East German border guards arrested them. A friend in West Berlin filmed it.
26 September 1987
Two men scale the Wall into Kreuzberg
On Saturday 26 September 1987 two East German men evaded the guards, scaled the Berlin Wall and entered West Berlin's Kreuzberg district.
3 December 1987
An 18-year-old climbs into Neukölln with a ladder and swims a canal
On the night of 3 December 1987 an 18-year-old East German dodged border patrols in the Treptow area, climbed the Wall with a ladder and swam a canal into Neukölln. He telephoned West Berlin police to report his escape.
9 December 1987
Wolga car on the Glienicke Bridge
Two men from Potsdam tried to ram a Wolga M 21 through the barriers on the Glienicke Bridge but were stopped at the very first gate.
10 March 1988
Truck full of gas cylinders over the Glienicke Bridge
Three men drove a truck disguised as a hazardous-goods transport and loaded with 92 empty gas cylinders through four barriers on the Glienicke Bridge. It was the first successful escape over the bridge.
19 April 1988
Building cleaner's window-ladder escape
A 31-year-old building cleaner used a window-cleaning ladder to cross every barrier from Treptow into Neukölln while two guards fired 18 shots at him without a hit.
16 July 1988
Over the gate and into the control area at Checkpoint Charlie
A 23-year-old lorry driver working on Berlin building sites climbed a gate and a wire fence and tried to get through the control area at Checkpoint Charlie. People on the western viewing platform watched his arrest, and Western media published photos taken from there.
21 August 1988
Four swim the Spree by the Reichstag as West Berliners watch
Four East Germans fled through the Spree near the Reichstag in front of many West Berlin onlookers; the crew of the pursuing border patrol boat did not open fire and all four reached the West unhurt.
31 August 1988
Guards shoot at a tipper truck approaching the Chausseestraße crossing
Two young men and a woman drove a tipper truck towards the Chausseestraße crossing; East German guards fired three to six shots and the three were led away, apparently unhurt.
2 September 1988
Two men swim the Havel with a patrol boat behind them
In the early hours of 2 September 1988 two men swam across the Havel in the north of Berlin and reached West Berlin unhurt, although a GDR border patrol boat chased them.
3 September 1988
Two border guards cross from the Potsdam district to Kladow
On 3 September 1988 two members of the GDR border troops on duty in the Potsdam district crossed into Kladow, in the south-west of West Berlin.
5 September 1988
Two young metalworkers set off the alarm lights and still get through at Buckow
At 3.20 a.m. on 5 September 1988 two metalworkers aged 18 and 21 climbed the barriers between the Groß Ziethen allotment colony and Buckow; they triggered the alarm lights but the guards did not stop them.
25 September 1988
Two young men run through the Brandenburg Gate and stop at a warning shot
On the evening of 25 September 1988 two young East Berliners ran through the Brandenburg Gate towards the West; they stopped when a guard fired a warning shot and were led away.
28 September 1988
Two get over the Wall at Bethaniendamm under fire; their companion is caught
At about 12.30 p.m. on 28 September 1988 two East Berliners aged 20 and 21 climbed the Wall at Bethaniendamm into Kreuzberg despite shots; a 20-year-old woman who wanted to go with them was arrested.
29 September 1988
A man and a woman swim the Havel to Heiligensee in the dark
Before dawn on 29 September 1988 a 34-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman swam about 450 yards across the Havel from near Nieder Neuendorf to Heiligensee, eluding a GDR patrol boat; a passer-by took them to the nearest police station.
28 November 1988
A border guard disables his partner's gun and crosses at Ostpreußendamm
On 28 November 1988 a member of the GDR border troops fled to West Berlin with his weapon at the Ostpreußendamm in Steglitz, after removing the bolt from his patrol partner's submachine gun.
January 1989
A farmer climbs the Wall into Lichtenrade with a ladder under fire
In an escape reported on 6 January 1989, a 34-year-old farmer from the GDR used a ladder to get over the border installations at Tutzinger Straße in Lichtenrade; by his own account he was shot at three times.
13 January 1989
Ingolf Diederichs dies jumping from an S-Bahn at Bösebrücke
The 24-year-old climbed out of a moving S-Bahn train with a home-made folding ladder near the Bornholmer Straße crossing, got caught on the train and was killed.
24 January 1989
Thomas Drescher and his friend caught at the Wall in Glienicke
On the night of 24 January 1989 the carpenter Thomas Drescher and his friend Dirk set a ladder against the Wall at Glienicke/Nordbahn and climbed, but a dog barked, a searchlight caught them and three armed border guards surrounded them. He was sentenced to 15 months and ransomed by West Germany in October 1989.
26 January 1989
A bricklayer scrambles over the Wall from Pankow to Wedding – seen, but not shot at
Early on 26 January 1989 a 23-year-old East German bricklayer scrambled over the Wall from Pankow into Wedding. Border guards saw him but did not open fire.
5 February 1989
Chris Gueffroy, the last escaper shot dead at the Wall
Chris Gueffroy, 20, and his friend Christian Gaudian tried to climb the border fences at the Britzer Zweigkanal, believing the order to shoot had been lifted; Gueffroy was shot through the heart and Gaudian was wounded and arrested.
14 February 1989
Martin Notev is dragged back out of the Spree at the West Berlin bank
Martin Notev and two young neighbours smashed through the barriers with a truck and jumped into the Spree near the Reichstag. The neighbours escaped; Notev was pulled back by the hair from the West Berlin quay wall by a GDR patrol boat crew.
8 March 1989
Winfried Freudenberg's fatal gas balloon flight
The last refugee to die at the Berlin Wall, as the Chronik der Mauer counts it: Winfried Freudenberg crossed into West Berlin in a home-made natural-gas balloon but was killed when it came down in Zehlendorf.
10 March 1989
Tipper truck and ladder in Staaken
Three men tried to flatten the border fences in Staaken with a tipper truck and climb the Wall with a ladder, but the truck stuck in the second fence and one of them was shot.
31 March 1989
Three men break through the first control point at Drewitz
Late on 31 March 1989 a car with GDR plates and three men aboard broke through the first control point at Drewitz and hit a barrier; the three were led away. Travellers reported shots, which the GDR denied.
8 April 1989
Jan-Michael G.'s truck is caught in a cable barrier
On 8 April 1989 a heavy truck broke through both service gates at Ruppiner Straße but was stopped by a cable barrier designed to catch lorries.
8 April 1989
Over the barrier at Chausseestraße in front of western cameras
Two young East Berliners jumped over the barrier at the Chausseestraße crossing; a passport controller fired a shot (a warning shot, according to the Stasi files) and both were arrested, while western journalists who had been tipped off recorded the attempt.
26 April 1989
Stolen truck stuck in the death strip at Glienicke
A 21-year-old steelworker broke through the inner wall with a stolen truck but got stuck in the sand of the death strip after hitting a lamp post.
9 May 1989
Citroën at the Stolpe crossing
A 27-year-old fitter drove a Citroën through the first barrier at Stolpe at 80 km/h, losing the car's roof, before crashing into the base of a second barrier.
26 May 1989
Ultralight flight from Treptower Park to the Reichstag
Two brothers who had already fled flew ultralight aircraft from West Berlin to Treptower Park at dawn; one landed to pick up their brother Egbert, and both aircraft came down in front of the Reichstag.
29 June 1989
Škoda through three barriers at Mahlow
A 27-year-old electrician approached the Mahlow crossing at walking pace, then accelerated through three barriers before crashing into a heavy crash barrier.
5 July 1989
Guards order a 24-year-old to halt but hold their fire as he scales the Wall
On Wednesday 5 July 1989 East German border guards ordered a 24-year-old man to halt as he scaled the Berlin Wall, but did not fire when he defied them; he reached the West.
8 August 1989
Trabant caught by a steel cable at Drewitz
On 8 August 1989 a 33-year-old man from Belzig drove his Trabant into the Drewitz crossing, where a steel cable barrier stopped him.
15 August 1989
ZIL truck overturned at Stolpe
A 28-year-old man drove a ZIL-131 truck through several gates at the Stolpe crossing until it overturned against another barrier.
18 August 1989
Hans-Peter and Peggy Spitzner in an American's car boot through Checkpoint Charlie
In August 1989 a teacher from Chemnitz and his seven-year-old daughter crossed Checkpoint Charlie hidden in the car boot of a young American, Eric Yaw. A Saxon memorial foundation calls them the last known Wall refugees.
7 October 1989
Gabriela M. tries to escape while East Berlin demonstrates
While thousands demonstrated in East Berlin on 7 October 1989, a young woman from Eberswalde tried to escape at Brunnenstraße and was arrested just before midnight.
