Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

4 March 1965 · Over the wall

Christian Buttkus – a snowstorm escape at Kleinmachnow

After abandoning plans to dive through the Teltow Canal, Christian Buttkus and his fiancée Ilse P. tried to cross at Kleinmachnow in a snowstorm; he was killed at the last fence and she was wounded and jailed.

A tall orange stele and a grey post with a portrait panel standing among beech trees in a spring woodland.
Memorial stele for Christian Buttkus in the woods by the Stahnsdorfer Damm near Kleinmachnow (2012) Photo: Anszu. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Christian Buttkus, born in Tilsit on 21 February 1944, grew up in Berlin-Niederschönhausen and worked as a chemical worker in Adlershof. He rejected the closing of the border and did not want to swear the NVA oath. From August 1964 he built diving equipment and even an underwater vehicle to cross the Teltow Canal in summer 1965, and the couple made their own diving suits; in tests the vehicle proved useless.

When his call-up for 1 May 1965 arrived, they brought the escape forward. On 3 March 1965 a forecast of heavy snow and strong wind decided them to go overland that same night. Wearing white coats as camouflage and carrying two wire cutters, they took the S-Bahn and bus to Kleinmachnow, where Ilse P. had grown up.

A large granite boulder inscribed "Opfern der Teilung Deutschlands" with flowers at its base, beside a rust-coloured steel panel with text, under trees.
Memorial stone to the victims of German division at Berlepschstraße/Karl-Marx-Straße on the Berlin–Kleinmachnow boundary, with a rust-brown panel naming victims who died nearby (2019) Photo: OTFW, Berlin. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

At 1.15 a.m. they set off an acoustic signal device after crossing the vehicle ditch, then ran across the cleared strip towards the three-row barbed-wire fence. A pair of sentries fired warning shots while a patrol fired directly at them.

Before they could cut through the fence, Buttkus was hit by 25 bullets in the right side of his chest and died at once. Ilse P. was grazed on the leg by one of the 199 rounds fired. She was sentenced to one year and eight months and learned only at her trial that her fiancé was dead.

In December 1994 the Potsdam regional court gave the former patrol guard a suspended sentence of one year and six months for manslaughter.

Sources

Press

Historians and memorials

Facts checked against the sources: September 2026

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Berlin Experiences, “Christian Buttkus – a snowstorm escape at Kleinmachnow”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/christian-buttkus-kleinmachnow-1965/ (accessed [date]).

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