Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

15 August 1961 · Guards who fled

Conrad Schumann's leap to freedom

Two days after the border was sealed, 19-year-old border policeman Conrad Schumann jumped over the barbed-wire barrier at Bernauer Straße into West Berlin, dropping his submachine gun as he went.

A metal sculpture of a leaping soldier on a grassy strip beside a street
Sculpture commemorating Conrad Schumann's leap, on the former border strip at Bernauer Straße near Ruppiner Straße (photographed 2009) Photo: Jotquadrat. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

On 15 August 1961, two days after the sealing of the sector border, the 19-year-old Conrad Schumann was on duty as an East German Bereitschaftspolizist (police reserve) at the corner of Bernauer Straße and Ruppiner Straße. At this spot the border was still marked only by a barbed-wire entanglement.

At around 4 p.m. he took a run-up and jumped over the wire into West Berlin, letting his Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun slip from his shoulder as he did so. On the western side he ran to a waiting Opel Blitz truck, which quickly drove him away.

Historical photograph of a corner apartment building and a row of houses on Bernauer Straße with bricked-up windows
The corner of Bernauer Straße and Ruppiner Straße in August 1963, two years after Conrad Schumann jumped the wire here; the East Berlin border houses have bricked-up windows Photo: Roger W from Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The young photographer Peter Leibing captured the moment of the jump. The picture travelled around the world and became one of the defining images of the Cold War; the Chronik der Mauer describes him as the first border policeman to flee at that spot.

Schumann, a trained shepherd from Zschochau in Saxony, later said that seeing a little girl prevented by border guards from returning to her parents in the West had affected him deeply. He settled in Bavaria after his escape and remained friends with Leibing for decades. He took his own life in 1998.

Sources

  1. „Sprung in die Freiheit“: Die Flucht des DDR-Grenzpolizisten Conrad Schumann, 15. August 1961Chronik der Mauer
  2. Der Sprung – 1961Deutsches Historisches Museum
  3. Sprung in die FreiheitWikipedia (de)

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