13 September 1964 · Over the wall
Michael Meyer pulled over the Wall under fire
Badly wounded by border guards' bullets, 21-year-old Michael Meyer was hauled over the Wall on a rope by a US military police sergeant while West Berlin police and US soldiers returned fire.
Early on 13 September 1964 Michael Meyer, a 21-year-old stable lad and former jockey, tried to climb the Wall in the Stallschreiberstraße near Spittelmarkt. After warning shots the guards fired to hit him; two officers who lived nearby joined in, and he fell back wounded onto the control strip.
The officers tried to drag him away, but West Berlin police and US soldiers took up positions in the houses on the western side and opened fire. A tear-gas grenade was thrown. The officers took cover, and Meyer tried again to get over the Wall.
A US soldier climbed onto the Wall and threw down a rope; a first attempt was driven back by fire. On the second attempt Meyer was pulled onto the western side and taken away by fire engine. The Stasi counted about 100 shots from the West and 82 from its own guards; nobody else was hurt.
The rescuer was US military police sergeant Hans Werner Puhl. Martin Luther King, who was visiting Berlin that day, went to the scene and condemned the 'dividing wall of hostility'. East Berlin papers afterwards smeared Meyer as a criminal.
Sources
- Chronik 1964 (September): 13. September 1964Chronik der Mauer
- Martin Luther King / Michael Meyer (memorial plaque, Stallschreiberstraße 42)Gedenktafeln in Berlin
- Jahrgang 1964: Feuergefecht bei Grenzdurchbruch nach Westberlin (Langfassung)Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (Die DDR im Blick der Stasi)
- Jahrgang 1964: Über den Geflüchteten in Berlin-MitteStasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (Die DDR im Blick der Stasi)
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