Smoke screen at the Wilhelmsruher Damm
Under cover of smoke canisters thrown from West Berlin, a woman doctor and a man with the same surname as her maiden name abandoned their Trabant in the barrier and ran through a pre-cut gap in the fence in broad daylight.
Shortly after noon on 12 June 1964, guards on the Wilhelmsruher Damm saw smoke canisters being thrown onto East German territory from the West Berlin side.
At the same moment a Trabant came racing along the road from Rosenthal and got stuck in the forward barrier about 150 m from the border. Two people jumped out and ran towards the border in the smoke. The guards, some 250 m away, could not fire at first because there were houses in the line of fire; when they did (14 shots), they missed.
The wire barrier had been cut open over a width of one metre and the cut ends hidden with old carpet. The Stasi found a Japanese walkie-talkie, wire cutters and binoculars at the spot, and tracks of more than two people.
The Stasi identified the escapees as a woman doctor and a man with the same surname as her maiden name. The West Berlin press reported that her husband and mother had also escaped, and Bild wrote that twelve West Berlin escape helpers had organised the operation.
Sources
Whose account is this? Told from a GDR record only: documents of the GDR’s police, Stasi or border troops. No other account of the event is cited.
GDR records
- Jahrgang 1964: Flucht nach WestberlinStasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (Die DDR im Blick der Stasi)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Smoke screen at the Wilhelmsruher Damm”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/wilhelmsruher-damm-smoke-screen-1964/ (accessed [date]).
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