20 January 1986 · Over the wall
"Ladder of success" at Glienicke/Nordbahn
Shortly after midnight a man used a two-metre ladder to climb the rear wall at Glienicke/Nordbahn, set off the signal fence, ran the last 17 metres and used the same ladder to get over the final wall — the guards never saw him.
Shortly after midnight on 20 January 1986 a man used a two-metre ladder to climb the rear security wall 40 metres west of Jungbornstraße 18 in Glienicke/Nordbahn, on the border with West Berlin's Reinickendorf district.
The death strip at this point was 26 metres deep. Crossing the border signal fence set off an alarm, but he covered the remaining 17 metres and climbed the final wall with the ladder.
A Stasi investigation found that the pair of guards in the observation tower had not seen him at all, and that leaving the tower would have taken at least 20 seconds, making an arrest unlikely. No shots were fired.
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