10 October 1964 · Hidden in vehicles · Checkpoint Charlie
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.
In July 1964 an American from Wisconsin, born in 1944, who worked as a loader for Lufthansa in Hamburg, learned from a colleague that the colleague's cousin, a spray painter living in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, wanted to leave the GDR. He agreed to help, and a Ford was bought and fitted with a hiding place behind the back seat.
On 10 October 1964 the American entered East Berlin in the Ford through the Friedrichstraße crossing, while his colleague came in a DKW with Hamburg plates through Heinrich-Heine-Straße. At her flat the woman gave her four-year-old child a sleeping pill the American had brought, so that the child would stay quiet. In a quiet street on the way to the checkpoint, mother and child climbed into the hiding place.
At the Friedrichstraße/Zimmerstraße checkpoint the American and the woman were arrested; the colleague had already left through Heinrich-Heine-Straße. An unloaded small-calibre pistol was found in the American's luggage. The Stasi handed the child to the woman's husband, who according to the report had been in constant conflict with her and apparently knew nothing of the plan.
Sources
Whose account is this? Told from a GDR record only: documents of the GDR’s police, Stasi or border troops. No other account of the event is cited.
GDR records
- Jahrgang 1964: Versuchte Schleusung DDR/Westberlin (Langfassung) – Einzelinformation Nr. 887a/64, 12 October 1964Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “A sleeping pill for the four-year-old: the American's Ford at Checkpoint Charlie”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/american-ford-sleeping-child-checkpoint-charlie-1964/ (accessed [date]).
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