27 September 1961 · Aircraft and balloons
US Army helicopters fly seven refugees out of Steinstücken
Seven people who had slipped into the tiny West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken were flown out to West Berlin in two US Army helicopters.
Steinstücken was a tiny West Berlin exclave surrounded entirely by GDR territory near Potsdam-Babelsberg. After August 1961 people who managed to get into the exclave were in West Berlin territory but still had to get out of it.
According to a Stasi report of 28 September 1961, a US Army helicopter with a crew of two landed in Steinstücken at about 5.10 p.m. on 27 September 1961. Because it could not take off again – supposedly because of engine trouble – a second US helicopter landed at about 6 p.m.
GDR observers saw seven civilians, five men and two women, walk up to the second helicopter. The American crews divided them between the two helicopters and flew them to West Berlin. One of them was a teenager from Babelsberg who had left his mother's flat in the night of 25/26 September and had been reported missing.
Sources
Whose account is this? Drawn from GDR records, a Western official record and a press report.
GDR records
- Jahrgang 1961: Flucht von Ostdeutschen in zwei US-Helikoptern – Einzel-Information Nr. 587/61, 28 September 1961Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
- Jahrgang 1961: Vorkommnisse an der Staatsgrenze West – Bericht Nr. 679/61, 1. November 1961Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
Western official records
- Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-63, vol. XIV, doc. 161 (Clay to Rusk, 28 Sep 1961, 4 p.m.)Office of the Historian, US Department of State
Press
- U.S. Helicopters Ferry Refugees From Enclave (28 September 1961)The New York Times
Facts checked against the sources: October 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “US Army helicopters fly seven refugees out of Steinstücken”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/steinstuecken-us-helicopters-1961/ (accessed [date]).
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Refugees who reached Steinstücken are flown out by US helicopter
A CIA chronology records that eight refugees reached the West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken on 8–9 October 1961 and that a US Army (USCOB) helicopter had flown four of them out by 10 October, the rest to follow the next day; a Stasi report counts one person on each of the two days.
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