21 October 1961 · False papers and disguises · Checkpoint Charlie
Hasso Herschel leaves on a Swiss passport
Weeks after the Wall went up, the later tunnel builder Hasso Herschel left East Berlin on someone else's Swiss passport and immediately began looking for a way to get his sister out.
Hasso Herschel, born in Dresden in 1935, had studied in West Berlin before the Wall and had already served a prison sentence in the GDR for alleged economic crimes. The sector border in Berlin was closed in August 1961.
In October 1961 he crossed to West Berlin using a Swiss passport that was not his own. NPR gives the date as 21 October 1961 and says the forged passport came from a West Berlin student; the NZZ writes that he passed through Checkpoint Charlie.
Once in the West, Herschel looked for escape helpers who could bring out his sister Anita and her family. He found the students who were planning what became Tunnel 29, joined the digging in 1962, and is credited with helping around a thousand people leave the GDR (the NZZ says this is his own claim).
Sources
Whose account is this? Told from press reports only.
Press
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Hasso Herschel leaves on a Swiss passport”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/hasso-herschel-swiss-passport-1961/ (accessed [date]).
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