16 August 1961 · Guards who fled
Two policemen vanish from the Kobold works
The day after Conrad Schumann's jump, two young Volkspolizei officers said to be his friends disappeared from their post on the Kobold works site at Bernauer Straße and reached West Berlin.
Rudolf K. and Reinhardt R. had joined the Berlin Bereitschaftspolizei only in spring 1961 and had been sent with their units to guard the new border. According to the Berlin Wall Memorial they are said to have been friends of Conrad Schumann, who had jumped the wire on 15 August.
On the following day the two were posted on the grounds of the Kobold works, near Bernauer Straße 19. Because the buildings on Bernauer Straße at this point had been destroyed in the war, only a fairly low wall stood on the border line.
When the guard was changed at midnight, a comrade discovered that both men were gone. The border troops were unable to establish how, or why, the two had gone to the West.
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