A gunner steals a loaded T-34 tank to break through to West Berlin
Left unsupervised in his barracks, an NVA tank gunner took the keys to the tank hall, loaded the machine guns of a T-34/85, picked up a friend and drove off towards Güterfelde – until an officer jumped onto the moving tank.
On the afternoon of 4 July 1963 a Gefreiter and tank gunner of Motorised Rifle Regiment 2 in Stahnsdorf, born in Babelsberg in 1941, had been left behind unsupervised: his company had moved to the Lehnin firing range that morning, while he was due to serve as a lay judge at the military court in Berlin. According to the Stasi, he had been thinking for two or three weeks about deserting to West Berlin and had decided to break through with a tank rather than on foot.
He got hold of the keys to the sergeant-major's office, where the keys to the tank hall hung openly, took a fully armed T-34/85, fitted drums of ammunition to both machine guns and drove out at about 4.30 p.m. He broke through the gate to the sports ground, where his friend, born in 1944 and an apprentice mechanic at the Teltow control-equipment works, was waiting as agreed, then crashed through a wooden fence, knocked down a tree near the 'Sonnen-Eck' inn, damaged a garden wall and headed towards Güterfelde.
A sentry raised the alarm. Three officers chased the tank in a P 3 jeep; they could only stop it when a captain jumped onto it while it was moving. Both young men were arrested. The army leadership and the Stasi agreed to tell soldiers and the people of Stahnsdorf that the gunner had taken the tank for a joyride 'out of a thirst for adventure' – the planned breakthrough to West Berlin was to be kept quiet.
Sources
Whose account is this? Drawn from a GDR record and a press report.
GDR records
- Jahrgang 1963: Verhinderte Fahnen- und Republikflucht mit Panzer nach Westberlin – Einzelinformation Nr. 422/63, 5 July 1963Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
Press
- Landeshauptstadt: Unterm Waggon in den WestenPotsdamer Neueste Nachrichten / Der Tagesspiegel (E. Hohenstein, 13 Oct 2009)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “A gunner steals a loaded T-34 tank to break through to West Berlin”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/stahnsdorf-t34-tank-1963/ (accessed [date]).
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