A gunner steals a loaded T-34 tank to break through to West Berlin
Left alone in his barracks, a young NVA tank gunner took the keys to the tank hall, loaded the machine guns of a T-34/85, picked up a friend and set off towards the border – 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
- Jahrgang 1963: Verhinderte Fahnen- und Republikflucht mit Panzer nach Westberlin – Einzelinformation Nr. 422/63, 5 July 1963Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
Spotted an error, or know more about this story? Email us a correction or addition
Related escapes
17 April 1963
Wolfgang Engels' armoured personnel carrier
A 19-year-old civilian army employee drove a stolen Soviet-built armoured personnel carrier into the Wall and was shot while climbing over, but was pulled into the West.
5 May 1963
Under the barrier in an Austin-Healey Sprite
An Austrian, Heinz Meixner, drove a low-slung Austin-Healey Sprite with its windscreen removed under the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie, carrying his fiancée and her mother hidden in the car.
12 May 1963
Failed bus escape at Invalidenstraße
Eight young East Berliners tried to ram a stolen, steel-plated bus through the Invalidenstraße crossing; it was riddled with bullets and stopped one metre short of the West.
19 August 1961
A Konsum delivery van rolls through the wire at Staaken
The guards knew the van – it delivered to the Volkshaus restaurant every day – so nobody stopped it until it sped up and drove over the new wire fence into West Berlin.