Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

27 September 1986 · Guards who fled · Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag

A tower guard climbs the fence at the Spree behind the Reichstag

At midday on a Saturday a 22-year-old East German soldier on watch near the Brandenburg Gate slipped away while his partner was briefly gone and climbed a metal fence on the Spree behind the Reichstag into West Berlin.

The large stone Reichstag building in winter, with border barriers visible along the river bank.
The Reichstag in January 1985, with the Wall's barriers along the far bank of the Spree Photo: Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

On Saturday 27 September 1986 a 22-year-old soldier of the GDR border troops was on guard duty at the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate. He was one of the two-man crew of a watchtower.

Around midday his comrade left the tower for a short time. The soldier used the moment: still in full uniform but without his weapon, he climbed a metal mesh fence right on the Spree behind the Reichstag building and reached West Berlin. A West Berlin police patrol car picked him up and handed him over to the British authorities responsible for that sector.

A river in the foreground and, on the opposite bank, a sandy strip and a long graffiti-covered wall, with an elevated railway and a high-rise hospital beyond.
The Spree seen from the Reichstag bank in August 1990, with the Wall still standing on the East Berlin bank Photo: Robert Hösle. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The dpa report printed in the taz on the following Monday said that, for the first time in years, three escape attempts from East to West Berlin had been made on a single day. The other two failed: early that morning a man tried to break through the Chausseestraße crossing in Wedding with a car, and at about 5.40 p.m. a man who had already got past about half of the barriers was caught at the Wall in Wittenau after a motorcycle patrol of the border troops spotted him.

The same report recalled that five days earlier three East Germans had swum the Teltow Canal to West Berlin.

Sources

  1. Drei Fluchtversuche an der Mauer (taz, 29 September 1986, dpa)taz
  2. East German Border Guard Flees to West; 2nd Attempt Foiled (UPI, 28 September 1986)Los Angeles Times

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