20 November 1963 – 21 November 1963 · Swimming · Glienicker Brücke and Klein Glienicke
Hubert Hohlbein – through the Jungfernsee in a diving suit
Wearing a diving suit and weight belt, 21-year-old Hubert Hohlbein swam low in the water from near Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam to the West Berlin shore by the Glienicker Brücke.
Hubert Hohlbein, 21, had secretly practised swimming and diving under ice in the waters in and around Berlin with friends; two of them had already escaped through the Jungfernsee.
In the night of 20 to 21 November 1963 he entered the Jungfernsee near the disused Meierei restaurant close to Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam. Wearing a diving suit and a weight belt to stay low in the water, he swam as quietly as possible through the cold border water.
After about an hour and a half he came ashore, exhausted but unharmed, near the Glienicker Brücke in Berlin-Wannsee.
In West Berlin he took up electrical engineering studies and joined an escape-help group that in October 1964 got 57 people out through a tunnel — among them his own mother.
Sources
Whose account is this? Drawn from a press report and historical research.
Press
- Info-Pfad zur Potsdamer Grenze: Mit dem Schnorchel in den WestenPotsdamer Neueste Nachrichten / Der Tagesspiegel (11 Apr 2019)
Historians and memorials
- Gelungene Flucht durch Potsdamer Grenzgewässer, 21. November 1963Chronik der Mauer
- Flucht aus der DDR: Durchs WasserDemokratiegeschichten
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Hubert Hohlbein – through the Jungfernsee in a diving suit”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/hubert-hohlbein-jungfernsee/ (accessed [date]).
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A landscape architect dives through the Jungfernsee barrier
A 29-year-old landscape architect in a diving suit slipped through a corroded gap in the underwater barrier at Nedlitz and swam to West Berlin north of the Glienicker Brücke.
4 November 1963
Klaus Schröter – homemade diving suit at the Reichstag
Engineer Klaus Schröter sold his television to buy breathing gear, sewed himself a weighted diving suit and tried to cross the Spree underwater near the Reichstag; guards shot him and he drowned.
19 November 1962
Horst Plischke – missing in the Havel for four months
A 23-year-old from Potsdam went into the Havel north of the Glienicke Bridge before dawn; guards spotted him and fired, and he drowned. His body surfaced four months later.
1 January 1963
Hans Räwel – New Year's morning in the icy Spree
After a New Year's Eve party, baker Hans Räwel, born 1941, swam into the freezing Spree and was shot at close range from a border boat about 35 metres from the western bank.
