5 December 1961 · Window jumps
Through a hole in a bricked-up window at Bernauer Straße 2
A 27-year-old man crept through back yards into the cleared border houses, knocked bricks out of a walled-up window and dropped about seven metres to the pavement.
On 5 December 1961 a 27-year-old man escaped from the first floor of Bernauer Straße 2. By then the border houses had already been cleared of their residents; he reached them unnoticed through the back yards.
He knocked several bricks out of a walled-up window, squeezed through the hole and dropped about seven metres.
The border policemen only noticed him when he was already hanging on the outside wall. West Berlin police picked him up and took him away.
Sources
- Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer – Bereich B: Die Zerstörung der Stadt (Orientierungsplan und Ereignismarken), marker B 353Stiftung Berliner Mauer
- B 353 – Digital Guide, Berlin Wall MemorialStiftung Berliner Mauer
Spotted an error, or know more about this story? Email us a correction or addition
Related escapes
29 September 1961
Gerhard D.'s family escapes through a bricked-up cellar window
A neighbour reported West Berlin police loading things into a car; East Berlin police found the family's walled-up cellar window broken open and the four of them gone.
17 August 1961
The Mathern family leaves by the ground floor
Alarmed when the first front doors on Bernauer Straße were locked, the Mathern family fled from their ground-floor flat on 17 August 1961.
19 August 1961
Rudolf Urban's rope descent from Bernauer Straße 1
Rudolf Urban and his wife let themselves down on a rope from their first-floor flat; he was badly injured and died in hospital four weeks later.
22 August 1961
Ida Siekmann, first death at the Berlin Wall
Nine days after the border was sealed, the 58-year-old nurse jumped from her third-floor window onto the West Berlin pavement and died of her injuries.
