Manfred Mäder and René Gross – lifting-platform truck at Karpfenteichstraße

Manfred Mäder, a professional driver born in Prenzlau in 1948, had already served four and a half years in Bautzen II after a failed attempt to flee via Czechoslovakia in the late 1970s. After his release he found only menial work. In 1985 he married and moved into his wife's flat, which lay directly by the Wall in Treptow; the following year the family applied to leave the GDR.

René Gross, born in East Berlin in 1964, worked as a driver and had applied to emigrate in 1985. His wife preferred to stay in the GDR with their son. When the two men met, they agreed to flee to West Berlin ahead of their families rather than wait indefinitely for a decision on their applications.

During the night of 20 to 21 November 1986 they took a W 50 truck fitted with a lifting platform that reached almost the height of the Wall. At around 5 a.m. they drove at high speed towards the border between Treptow and Neukölln, broke through a gate in the rear wall and the signal fence, and after a sharp right turn came to a stop parallel to the border, at the foot of the concrete wall facing West Berlin.

Guards in two watchtowers and soldiers who ran to the spot fired continuously. Manfred Mäder jumped from the truck's superstructure onto the top of the Wall, was hit in the left thigh, fell back onto the eastern side and bled to death. René Gross, who had given up and taken cover beneath the truck, was killed by a shot to the head.

The guards were decorated the same day, and a GDR military prosecutor closed the case two months later. Almost 18 years afterwards the Berlin Regional Court gave the soldier who shot Manfred Mäder a ten-month suspended sentence for manslaughter; who shot René Gross could not be established. A memorial plaque for both men was unveiled on Kiefholzstraße in 2011.