18 October 1963 · Guards who fled
Border policeman crashes a crawler tractor through the wire
A 22-year-old border policeman assigned to construction work took a tracked vehicle through the wire barriers between Wilhelmsruh and Reinickendorf; when it stuck halfway, he ran the rest of the way to the West.
On 18 October 1963 a 22-year-old GDR border policeman was assigned to construction work in the death strip between Wilhelmsruh in East Berlin and Reinickendorf in West Berlin.
He took over a tracked vehicle and broke through the wire barriers. The machine got stuck with its front part in West Berlin and its rear axle still in East Berlin, so he abandoned it and completed his escape on foot.
West Berlin police arrived and faced GDR border soldiers across the line. The soldiers later recovered the vehicle and towed it back to East Berlin.
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Jürgen Cr. jumps from the new wall
While guarding engineers who were building a second concrete wall at Bernauer Straße, conscript Jürgen Cr. waited for his partner to go for cigarettes and jumped over the front wall into West Berlin.
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Two young conscripts vanish in the fog at Bergmann-Borsig
A two-man patrol of new conscripts from the same home town climbed the fence and the new concrete wall at Wilhelmsruh in thick fog and took their submachine guns with them.
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