19 November 1986 · Over the wall
Dieter H.'s folding-ladder escape under fire
A toolmaker who had been refused permission to emigrate and jailed for two years built a small collapsible ladder, cut through the signal fence at Brunnenstraße and got over the 3.6-metre Wall while twelve shots were fired at him.
Dieter H., a toolmaker, had applied to leave the GDR and been refused; he had served a two-year prison sentence for political reasons. After his release he decided to flee.
On the evening of 19 November 1986 he climbed the rear wall at Brunnenstraße with a small home-made collapsible ladder and cut through the border signal fence with bolt cutters, setting off acoustic and optical alarms.
He covered the roughly 18 metres to the border wall in seconds, set up his three-metre ladder against the 3.6-metre Wall and climbed over. Border soldiers about 390 metres away fired a warning shot and twelve aimed single shots, one of which hit the concrete right beside the ladder; the Berlin Wall Memorial names the post at Kremmener Straße as the one that fired, while the guards in the Strelitzer Straße tower did not shoot. The response was slowed because a guard could not find the light switch in a watchtower's dark stairwell.
He jumped down into Wedding, where onlookers applauded, and injured himself on landing – according to the Berlin Wall Memorial he broke both heels – and was taken away by ambulance. The guards found only his ladder at the Wall.
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