27 October 1961 · Window jumps
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.
In the night of 26 to 27 October 1961 two men crept onto the roof of Ackerstraße 41. They climbed down onto the neighbouring house and from there let themselves down on a washing line to the roof of Ackerstraße 43, ten metres lower. There they waited for morning.
At about nine o'clock the West Berlin fire brigade spread out a jumping sheet in front of the house. Members of a construction unit building border barriers in the Sophien cemetery reported this to the border police.
The police only spotted the escapee R. as he jumped from the roof into the West. They never registered the second man at all.
Sources
- Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer – Bereich B: Die Zerstörung der Stadt (Orientierungsplan und Ereignismarken), marker B 354Stiftung Berliner Mauer
- B 354 – Digital Guide, Berlin Wall MemorialStiftung Berliner Mauer
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