Anton Walzer – shot swimming from a barge
Sixty-year-old Anton Walzer climbed onto a moored barge and slipped into the Spree; border guards shot him in the back of the head.
Anton Walzer was born on 27 April 1902 in Weiler near Ravensburg in Upper Swabia.
At about 10.15 p.m. on 8 October 1962 he climbed onto a barge moored near the Oberbaumbrücke and entered the Spree to swim to West Berlin. Border guards saw him and opened fire.
He was hit in the back of the head and drowned. Water police and firefighters recovered his body the next morning around 8.30 a.m., while GDR forces blocked the view of Western photographers.
In 1994 the border guard who fired was convicted of manslaughter and given a suspended sentence of one and a half years.
Sources
- Walzer, AntonChronik der Mauer
- Todesopfer im GrenzflussEast Side Gallery (Stiftung Berliner Mauer)
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Related escapes
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.
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.
1 January 1963
Hans Räwel – New Year's morning in the icy Spree
After a New Year's Eve party, 21-year-old baker Hans Räwel swam into the freezing Spree and was shot at close range from a border boat about 35 metres from the western bank.
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.
