A councillor, his wife and two small sons climb the Wall at Klein Glienicke with a fruit ladder

Helmut-Henning Schimpfermann, a trainee editor at the Brandenburgische Neueste Nachrichten and a town councillor (Stadtverordneter) for the National Democratic Party (NDPD), lived with his wife Brigitte and their two sons in the border area of Klein Glienicke. In the night of 15 June 1971 it rained heavily; the border guards' motorcycle patrols were not out, their Trabants converted into 'jeeps' came by less often than usual, and part of the lighting of the border strip had failed. The couple took a long fruit ladder from a neighbour, which, against regulations, had not been chained up.

The first metal fence, just under head height, was no problem. Behind it stood a 2.50-metre concrete wall topped with a metal mesh fence. With the ladder Helmut Schimpfermann climbed the wall and found a foothold on a cross-strut on the far side; his wife passed the children, aged two and a half years and six months, over to him, and they all came through the jump to the ground unhurt. From a telephone column on the Wannseestraße in West Berlin they called the police emergency number, and the police picked them up within minutes.

That night a border patrol found the ladder leaning against the wall in the Waldrandstraße, and by dawn it was established that the family had gone. The Stasi questioned Brigitte Schimpfermann's brother, informed the newspaper staff of the 'Republikflucht', questioned separately a colleague who was Schimpfermann's mentor and friend, and put him under an 'Operative Personenkontrolle' from 19 October 1971. The escape fell on the opening day of the SED's VIII Party Congress. In 1971 the family had asked the press not to report the escape; they agreed to the account published in 2006.