Michael Mara and a fellow patrol leader climb the wire at Kohlhasenbrück on Christmas morning

Michael Mara had been a junior editor for a few months at the East Berlin youth publisher 'Junge Welt' when the border was closed on 13 August 1961. That evening a functionary of the publisher told him he had put his name on a list for the 20,000 soldiers needed to guard the border, and Mara signed a declaration of readiness. He served in the 12th border company at the Steinstraße in Potsdam, the company Drewitz-West, facing the West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken. Its road to Kohlhasenbrück had been torn up and closed with barbed wire; residents had to use a guarded forest track of about one and a half kilometres, with the 'Kontrollpunkt Kohlhasenbrück', a barrier and a small guard hut, at the border to West Berlin. Mara writes that from the moment he was recruited he had resolved to use the first chance to flee, and that during his early weeks the company leadership was nervous because two more border soldiers had deserted a few days before.

On Christmas Eve 1961 the company held a Christmas party, and because it was Christmas the briefing for the next morning's duty was brought forward to about 9 p.m. Mara learned that he would stand guard for the first time at the Kohlhasenbrück checkpoint barrier, about 80 metres from the border line. He packed his identity papers and other documents into his uniform jacket, against regulations, and agreed with a comrade, the post leader of the soldiers patrolling to the left of the checkpoint, that they would flee together.

At five in the morning of 25 December Mara jumped off the lorry at the checkpoint. At seven he went back out to the barrier while his own post leader withdrew into the warm hut. Soon afterwards the patrol arrived and, as agreed, its leader sent his sentry into the hut to warm up. Because the brightly lit road to West Berlin could be seen from all sides, the comrade strolled away along the wire as if checking something, Mara followed, and away from the hut they climbed over the fences. Mara still carried his Soviet carbine with 60 rounds. Before they reached West Berlin he saw an NCO patrol approaching the checkpoint.

They ran under a bridge and burst into a small West Berlin police hut, where two officers were drinking coffee and listening to Christmas music. Mara later worked for the West German 'Informationsbüro West', helped Rainer Hildebrandt set up Wall exhibitions at Bernauer Straße and Checkpoint Charlie, and was for 17 years the Tagesspiegel's correspondent in Brandenburg.