110 bottles of hydrogen and a plastic balloon – then two families climb the fence at Groß Glienicke

Two families who worked at the chemical-fibre works in Premnitz had prepared their escape carefully. On 18 October 1968 a man posing as an employee of a Premnitz construction firm had 110 bottles of hydrogen delivered from a chemicals trader in Oranienburg. Two lorry drivers, who had been promised 150 marks and told the bottles held cheap propane, drove them together with six sacks of plastic sheeting to the Falkenhagen Heath between Falkenhöh and Schönwalde, about two kilometres from the West Berlin border. The plan was to make balloons from the sheeting and float over the border.

On the evening of 19 October one father travelled with his wife and two children by train, the other couple by motorcycle, towards the border. Inflating the plastic with hydrogen failed, so they decided to climb the barriers instead. In the night, under heavy ground fog, they climbed the hinterland fence, crossed the six-metre control strip, broke through the signal fence – which went off – got over a field of upright iron spikes and climbed the expanded-metal fence that marked the border itself.

At about 6 a.m. on 20 October 1968 guards saw the last man climbing that fence. They fired 15 rounds and hit him in the thigh; he was arrested with a severed artery and was still unable to be questioned days later. His wife, his two children (born 1956 and 1957) and the other couple (born 1940 and 1947) reached West Berlin. The two lorry drivers were arrested; the gas bottles and sheeting were found on 21 October.