19 January 1964 · Over the wall · Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag
Wounded teenager pulled over the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate
A youth ran for the Wall south of the Brandenburg Gate, was shot in the leg, limped along the Wall and was pulled over by West Berlin police officers.
On the afternoon of 19 January 1964 a guard at the Brandenburg Gate saw a young man walking from the area south of the Hotel Adlon towards the border in the old Ministergärten.
The two-man post fired a warning shot and then an aimed shot as he was on the wire fence in front of the control strip. He fell onto the strip, but got up again and, limping heavily, ran along the Wall towards the Gate.
Four West Berlin riot police officers appeared on the other side, levelled their weapons at the East German post commander and called on him to let the man go. The guards did not intervene further, and the police pulled the youth over the Wall, which was about 1.80 m high there, and drove him away.
The Stasi report notes blood on the control strip and a wound to the right leg; according to the West Berlin press he was 16 years old.
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: Flucht am Brandenburger TorStasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (Die DDR im Blick der Stasi)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Wounded teenager pulled over the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/brandenburg-gate-youth-shot-1964/ (accessed [date]).
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