31 March 1983 · Ziplines and cables
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.
Holger Bethke's brother Ingo had already fled East Germany in 1975 and was living in the West. In 1983 Holger and his friend Michael Becker planned to cross the Wall in Berlin through the air, at a point where the border strip was narrow and tall buildings stood on both sides.
On 31 March 1983 the two men went up to the attic of a building in Treptow, East Berlin. From there they fired an arrow trailing a fishing line over the Wall to a building on the western side, in Neukölln, where Ingo was waiting.
Ingo attached a steel cable to the line, which the pair pulled back and fastened to a chimney. Hanging from wooden pulleys, Bethke and Becker slid along the cable high above the death strip and reached West Berlin.
Sources
Whose account is this? Drawn from press reports and historical research.
Press
- The great escape across the Berlin WallThe Local Germany
- Two escape in Berlin Wall highwire act (5 April 1983)UPI Archives
- Medien: Fliegen, fliehen, filmenDer Tagesspiegel (Marisa Middleton, 21 May 2003)
- Von der DDR in den Westen: Drei Brüder, drei Fluchtgeschichten (Katja Iken, 23 May 2014)Der Spiegel
Historians and memorials
- Flucht der Brüder BethkeBerliner Mauer Karte (berlinwallmap.info)
Facts checked against the sources: October 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Holger Bethke and Michael Becker slide over the Wall on a steel cable”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/bethke-becker-zipline-1983/ (accessed [date]).
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