May Day: a train driver and conductor take an empty train to the West
On 1 May 1969 an East German train driver and a woman conductor drove an empty train of Berlin's elevated railway to a West Berlin stop, got out and asked for political asylum.
This is a reported escape. It appears in a reputable publication, but its key details could not be checked against a second source. See the note below.
On 1 May 1969 an East German train driver and a woman conductor used the May Day celebration to escape to the West. They drove an empty train of the city's elevated railway to a stop in West Berlin, got out and asked for political asylum.
The report notes that the railway was operated by the East Germans although it ran in both parts of the city. It gives no names, no line and no station.
Sources
- May Day Aids Berlin Escape (2 May 1969)The New York Times
Spotted an error, or know more about this story? Email us a correction or addition
Related escapes
10 January 1969
A kick through the glass wall at Friedrichstraße
Shortly after midnight a man kicked in a glass panel of the partition at Friedrichstraße station and got into the hall where the trains to West Berlin left, but he was arrested on the next westbound train.

14 March 1964
The wheelchair on the S-Bahn to Zoo
Two young men, one of them posing as a frail wheelchair user, cut the padlock off the lift to the westbound platform at Friedrichstraße and let the S-Bahn staff help them onto a train to Bahnhof Zoo.

January 1965
Through a cut grille between the S-Bahn platforms
A young West Berliner who had fled himself the year before cut a grille beneath the glass wall between the S-Bahn platforms at Friedrichstraße so that his girlfriend could slip through.

27 May 1983
The S-Bahn hijacking at Friedrichstraße
A 24-year-old forced his way into an S-Bahn driver's cab with an air rifle and tried to make the train run on into West Berlin; it stopped short of a buffer stop and he was overpowered by officers of the passport control unit.
