30 June 1974 · By train

A jump from a moving S-Bahn at Bornholmer Straße

An East Berlin lorry driver tried to jump from a moving S-Bahn where the tracks ran through the border strip at Bornholmer Straße; he fractured the base of his skull and was arrested by border troops.

View from under dark steel bridge arches towards a red and cream S-Bahn train passing behind a graffiti-covered wall.
The railway beneath the Bösebrücke at Bornholmer Straße in 2024; while the Wall stood, the S-Bahn tracks here ran through the border area Photo: Ubahnverleih. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Between Pankow and Schönhauser Allee the East Berlin S-Bahn ran along the so-called 'Ulbricht curve', a stretch electrified in 1952 so that trains could bypass West Berlin and extended in 1961. At Bornholmer Straße the tracks passed through the border area right beside the Wall.

On 30 June 1974 a lorry driver from East Berlin, born in 1949, tried to jump off a moving S-Bahn train at this point. The jump went badly: he suffered a fracture at the base of his skull.

Border troops arrested him. According to the account based on Stasi files, nothing is known about what became of him afterwards.

Sources

  1. Ein Mann kaperte 1983 einen Zug und wollte mit ihm in den Westen fahren. Er kam aber nur bis zum Bahnhof Friedrichstraße: Republikflucht mit der S-Bahn endete vor dem PrellbockBerliner Zeitung (29 December 2004)

Spotted an error, or know more about this story? Email us a correction or addition

  1. 13 January 1989

    Ingolf Diederichs dies jumping from an S-Bahn at Bösebrücke

    The 24-year-old climbed out of a moving S-Bahn train with a home-made folding ladder near the Bornholmer Straße crossing, got caught on the train and was killed.

    By train · Killed · Pankow

  2. 12 December 1981

    Thomas Taubmann jumps from a freight train under the Bösebrücke

    On the evening of 12 December 1981 Thomas Taubmann climbed onto a freight train leaving Pankow and jumped off beneath the Bösebrücke, right at the border. He was found dead on the tracks.

    By train · Killed · Pankow

  3. 10 January 1969

    A kick through the glass wall at Friedrichstraße

    Shortly after midnight a man kicked in a glass panel of the partition at Friedrichstraße station and got into the hall where the trains to West Berlin left, but he was arrested on the next westbound train.

    By train · Stopped · Mitte

  4. 27 May 1983

    The S-Bahn hijacking at Friedrichstraße

    A 24-year-old forced his way into an S-Bahn driver's cab with an air rifle and tried to make the train run on into West Berlin; it stopped short of a buffer stop and he was overpowered by officers of the passport control unit.

    By train · Stopped · Mitte