15 August 1961 · False papers and disguises · Treptow and Neukölln
Renate Reich crosses at Harzer Straße on a forged identity card
Her West Berlin father came for her with a forged identity card. Finding the checks at Heinrich-Heine-Straße too thorough, they found a lone guard in the Harzer Straße who looked at their papers under a street lamp and let them through.
Renate Reich, 17, lived with her mother and grandparents in the Husemannstraße in Prenzlauer Berg and was training as a hairdresser at the Mitropa salon in Friedrichstraße station. Her father, who ran a printing business in Gesundbrunnen in West Berlin, had promised to bring her over. On the morning of 15 August 1961 her union representative told her at work that there would be no more 20-pfennig S-Bahn tickets to her father.
As a West Berliner her father could still enter East Berlin. He collected her from her grandparents with a forged identity card for her, complete with photograph and stamp. Cars were no longer allowed to cross, and the closure was tightening.
They first tried the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing, but the checks there were too thorough. They kept looking until evening and found a single guard at the border to Neukölln. In the Harzer Straße he examined their identity cards under a street lamp, and they walked across. A West Berlin policeman on the other side asked what was going on; when her father said he had brought his daughter over, the policeman congratulated them. Shortly afterwards her father also brought her mother to West Berlin.
Sources
Whose account is this? Told from witness accounts only.
Witness accounts
- „Familienzusammenführung“ – rbb eyewitness video (2011)rbb – Geschichte der Berliner Mauer (berlin-mauer.de)
- „Familienzusammenführung“ – subtitles of the rbb eyewitness videorbb – Geschichte der Berliner Mauer (berlin-mauer.de)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Renate Reich crosses at Harzer Straße on a forged identity card”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/renate-reich-harzer-strasse-1961/ (accessed [date]).
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