August 1986 · Swimming · The Spree between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain
A teenage couple climbs the Wall with fence boards and swims the Spree
In August 1986 an East Berlin apprentice bricklayer and his 17-year-old girlfriend used parts of a wooden fence to climb the Wall on the eastern bank of the Spree and swam the short distance to West Berlin. The escape was kept secret until September so the route could stay open.
One night in August 1986 an East German teenage couple climbed over the Wall unobserved and swam across the Spree to West Berlin.
According to a West Berlin official, the two used parts of a wooden fence to get over the Wall on the eastern bank of the river and then swam the short distance to the western side.
The escape was kept secret 'in order to leave the same escape route open as long as possible'. When it was announced on Tuesday 9 September 1986, the official said nobody else had used the route. He named the couple as Mike Kussin, a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer, and Ulrike Honko, a 17-year-old glass worker; UPI gave the young man's age as 18.
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