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.
The Becker family lived at Oranienburger Chaussee 13 in Glienicke/Nordbahn, directly on the border with West Berlin. They were due to be forcibly resettled away from the border on 1 February 1962. Günter Becker had the idea of digging a tunnel; his twin brother Bruno started digging in the cellar while their sister kept watch from the kitchen window for patrolling border guards.
The tunnel was about 1.20 metres high and 60 centimetres wide and ran roughly 30 metres to a park area in Frohnau. Bruno, an electrician, installed lighting that could be switched off as a warning signal. The excavated sand was hidden in the cellar.
On the night of 23–24 January 1962, 28 people gathered in the house, including the Becker siblings and their mother but also people the family did not know. West Berlin police pulled them one after another out of the exit; the last to emerge was a 71-year-old woman. Hours later the tunnel was reported to the Stasi.
The border houses were torn down in 1963. The escape made headlines worldwide and inspired Robert Siodmak's 1962 film 'Tunnel 28 – Escape from East Berlin'.
Sources
- Der Becker-TunnelFluchttunnel Glienicke (Archäologiebüro ABD-Dressler)
- Tunnel Oranienburger Straße 13 (Becker-Tunnel, Tunnel 28)TF-Mapping (Institut für Europäische Ethnologie, Humboldt-Universität Berlin)
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