'Glockengasse 4711': the sewer route under the Alte Jakobstraße

After 13 August 1961 escape helpers in West Berlin, many of them students at the Free University, looked for ways to bring East Berliners across. One of the routes they used was the sewer system. A combined sewer ran from Mitte under the Alte Jakobstraße into Kreuzberg; in escape-helper circles it had the code name 'Glockengasse 4711', after the Cologne address of the eau de Cologne maker.

According to a memorial plaque in the Neue Grünstraße, refugees went down through a manhole in the street in front of house number 16 between 13 September and 14 October 1961. The pipe was about one metre high at first and about 1.5 metres near the exit, and the way through ran for several hundred metres. The helpers belonged to the Girrmann group; the Berliner Unterwelten association says the exit was in the Alte Jakobstraße in Kreuzberg, about 850 metres away.

Der Freitag describes how it worked. A courier brought the people who wanted to escape to the manhole at night; 'lid men' lifted the heavy cover, and helpers on the Kreuzberg side got them out again. A small bus took them to a student hostel to wash and then on to the Marienfelde refugee camp. According to the paper, the West Berlin Senate quietly supplied rubber boots and plans of the city's sewers.

The route was eventually discovered. According to the TF-Mapping tunnel survey, a group was attacked with tear gas on 13 October 1961. After that the route could no longer be used. A Spiegel article in March 1962 made the 'Glockengasse' widely known.

In 2015 the former Girrmann helper Burkhart Veigel and the Berliner Unterwelten association marked the spot. A manhole cover inscribed 'Einstieg zur Freiheit' (entrance to freedom) was unveiled on 2 October 2015, along with a plaque. The plaque was later taken down after the owners of the building objected.