Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

5 May 1963 · Driving through · Checkpoint Charlie

Under the barrier in an Austin-Healey Sprite

An Austrian, Heinz Meixner, drove a low-slung Austin-Healey Sprite with its windscreen removed under the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie, carrying his fiancée and her mother hidden in the car.

Colour photo of the Allied checkpoint hut in the middle of Friedrichstraße, a US Army military police car beside it and a road leading east.
Checkpoint Charlie on Friedrichstraße in August 1963, three months after Heinz Meixner drove under the barrier here Photo: Roger Wollstadt. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Heinz Meixner, a 20-year-old electrician from Linz in Austria, had met Margarete (Margit) Thurau in East Berlin and got engaged to her. Official permission for her to leave never came, so he looked for a way through the border himself. As an Austrian citizen he could cross Checkpoint Charlie, and on one crossing on a motor scooter he measured the height of the barrier.

The barrier stood a little under a metre above the road. Meixner rented a red Austin-Healey Sprite, took off the windscreen and let air out of the tyres, bringing the car low enough to pass underneath.

Black-and-white photo of uniformed men beside a large four-language sign reading 'You are leaving the American sector' in a snowy street.
Checkpoint Charlie in January 1962: US Navy reservists at the 'You are leaving the American sector' sign Photo: National Museum of the U.S. Navy. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Margit hid behind the seats. Her mother squeezed into the boot, shielded by bricks that Meixner packed in as a makeshift bullet stop.

Shortly after midnight on 5 May 1963 Meixner drove slowly into the checkpoint like an ordinary visitor. Then he accelerated, ducked and shot under the last barrier into the American sector before the surprised guards could fire. The three reached West Berlin.

The escape made Meixner briefly famous; RIAS broadcast a report on it on 8 May 1963. The GDR reinforced its barriers afterwards. Meixner and Margit married and settled in Linz.

Sources

  1. Mit Sportauto DDR-Grenzer überlistetOÖNachrichten
  2. RIAS-Reportage über eine geglückte Flucht mit einem Sportwagen am Checkpoint Charlie, 8. Mai 1963Chronik der Mauer
  3. Heinz Meixner Defects From East Germany by Driving Through Checkpoint Charlie after Removing His Windshield, 1963Rare Historical Photos
  4. A Sprite, True Love and the Cold WarMoss Motoring

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