The Collapsed Tunnel under Wollankstraße Station

The elevated S-Bahn station Wollankstraße lay on East Berlin territory but could only be reached from the West. Its brick arches beneath the tracks had been walled up. A group made up mostly of students of the Technical University, joined by the brothers Boris and Eduard Franzke, planned to dig from these arches to the back of a building on Schulzestraße in East Berlin to bring out friends and relatives.

The diggers sank a shaft about two metres deep, where groundwater already appeared, and drove the tunnel eastward, shoring it with boards and timber. Only a few metres in, part of the roof caved in; one digger was cut off by falling sand but was not buried.

On 27 January 1962 a small part of the platform above caved in. Railway staff investigating from West Berlin discovered the tunnel; East Berlin police pioneers then opened the arches from the eastern side, while the diggers removed some of their material. The cause of the collapse is disputed (see notes). On 1 February 1962 the GDR transport ministry held an international press conference on the tunnel. No one escaped through it.