Wolfgang Engels' armoured personnel carrier

Wolfgang Engels, 19, was a trained car mechanic working as a civilian employee of the East German National People's Army (NVA). On the evening of 17 April 1963, while the soldiers of an NVA advance party were at dinner, he drove off in one of their armoured personnel carriers parked at the Magerviehhof site in Friedrichsfelde, where he worked, and headed for the border.

At the border between Treptow and Neukölln, at Elsenstraße, he rammed the Wall; the Stasi report gives the time as 19:42. The vehicle broke into the barrier but became stuck.

When he got out he became tangled in barbed wire he had pulled down with the vehicle. A border soldier opened fire from about five metres; Engels later said the bullet went in at his back and came out at the front.

A West Berlin police officer returned fire to give him cover. Engels climbed over the Wall from the hood of the vehicle and, seriously wounded, was helped down on the western side by members of a savings club who were meeting in a pub right by the Wall; they carried him into the pub and bound his bleeding hand with a belt.