A rope over the Wall at Korsörer Straße – held by West Berlin policemen

Since August 1967 a young East Berlin woman, born in 1949, had been going out with a young West German living in West Berlin. Together with an East Berlin man they had recently met, born in 1943, the two East Berliners decided to escape. On 24 and 25 December 1967 they reconnoitred the border at Schwedter Straße and chose the section between Korsörer Straße and Schwedter Straße; the boyfriend studied the same stretch from the western side.

The plan was that he would throw a rope over the Wall from the West, and he promised to arrange for West Berlin police to cover them. In the night of 25/26 December the two waited on the plot at Korsörer Straße 13 until about 2.45 a.m. When the rope came over, they ran to the spot. Crossing the wire, the woman set off a signal device. She had already reached the Wall and was pulling herself up on the rope when the guards opened fire. Both gave up and were arrested unhurt.

According to the Stasi, the boyfriend and two West Berlin policemen had been holding the rope on the other side, and a third policeman shouted at the guards to stop firing, threatening to use his own weapon. The report adds that the woman's father was a Volkspolizei captain and that she had twice been sent to a youth workhouse.