Philipp Held – a West German who could not get back

Philipp Held was born in 1942 in Worms on the Rhine. After a conflict with his mother over his relationship with 16-year-old Bärbel W., the couple crossed the inner-German border near Helmstedt into the GDR in September 1961 and were settled in Eberswalde near Berlin.

They soon regretted the move, as letters to their parents show, and found the way back blocked by the Wall. When the GDR introduced conscription in January 1962, Held feared he would be drafted and would then never be allowed to leave. His last letter to his mother hinted at an escape; his girlfriend and his landlady knew of the plan without details. From 8 April 1962 he was missing.

On 22 April 1962 GDR border police found his body, and the water police recovered it at the Schillingbrücke; it had drifted from the direction of the Oberbaumbrücke and been caught in the wire of an underwater barrier. He was carrying his identity papers in a cellophane bag and had been dead for about ten days. There were no gunshot wounds, and the East Berlin investigators concluded that he had drowned.

His mother learned of his death only days later and was not asked before his remains were cremated. West German press reports that he had been shot were not confirmed when the Berlin prosecutors reopened the case in 1990; all surviving records support the conclusion that he drowned while trying to escape.