Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

24 August 1961 · False papers and disguises

Posing as bricklayers at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße wall

Early on 24 August 1961 two people in bricklayers' clothes told the guards at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße control point that they belonged to the bricklayers' brigade or had been sent to repair the border fortifications – and then got over the wall.

Colour photo of a row of graffiti-covered Wall segments left standing on a cobbled pavement beside a grassy open space, with apartment buildings in the distance.
Wall segments at Michaelkirchplatz / Engeldamm (the former Fritz-Heckert-Straße) in August 1990, as the Wall was being dismantled Photo: Robert Hösle. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Stasi report on this case passed on a general remark from the guards: workers who actually did jobs at the border barrier usually carried nothing but their identity cards.

At 6.30 a.m. on 24 August 1961, according to the East Berlin police journal, two men in bricklayers' clothes came from control point 49 to control point 48, said they belonged to the bricklayers' brigade and were let through; they then jumped over the wall to West Berlin. The brigade leader later said none of his men was missing. The Stasi report of the same day describes a man and a woman in bricklayers' clothing who appeared at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße control point at 6.55 a.m., claimed to have been sent to repair the border fortifications, and got over the barrier wall in front of the house it calls 'Lauscher Damm 4'.

Colour photo: a cobbled street curves past parked cars towards old apartment buildings; a line of asphalt-filled holes crosses the cobbles in the foreground.
The Leuschnerdamm in Kreuzberg in 2009; the patched cobbles mark where the Wall stood Photo: Uwca. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

A Stasi summary of November 1961 used the case as an example of escapes from building sites near the border: on 24 August a man and another person in bricklayers' clothes had driven up to the border in a construction vehicle and jumped over the wall.

Sources

  1. Stab Präsidium der Volkspolizei Berlin, Abt. Information – Journal der Handlung, 24 August 1961Chronik der Mauer (document: Landesarchiv Berlin, C Rep. 303/26.1/239)
  2. Jahrgang 1961: Lage nach dem Bau der Berliner Mauer (8) – Bericht Nr. 482/61, 24. August 1961Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
  3. Jahrgang 1961: Vorkommnisse an der Staatsgrenze West – Bericht Nr. 679/61, 1. November 1961Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)

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