Smuggled out in a BMW Isetta

Klaus-Günter Jacobi, whose family had left East Berlin in 1958, came up with the idea of hiding a person inside a BMW Isetta, a bubble car only about 2.3 to 2.4 m long, when his friend Manfred Koster asked for help to escape.

In his workshop he cut an opening in the panel behind the bench seat and raised the parcel shelf. He took out the spare wheel, heater and air filter and replaced the 13-litre fuel tank with a 2-litre can to make room for a person.

On 23 May 1964, shortly before the crossing closed at midnight, the Isetta rolled under the raised barrier into West Berlin. Jacobi himself was not at the wheel: according to auto motor und sport a student friend drove, as West Berliners could not enter East Berlin at the time. In West Berlin Manfred Koster climbed out of the hiding place.

It was the only escape made with Jacobi's own car. Students later used a second, similarly converted Isetta to bring eight more people out of the GDR. That car is on display in the Mauermuseum at Checkpoint Charlie.