Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

23 August 1961 · By train · Staaken

An engine driver uses the night shunting at Staaken station

At 2.30 a.m. on 23 August 1961 an engine driver from Wustermark took advantage of shunting work at Staaken station, then on the GDR side of the border, and crossed into West Berlin.

Colour photo: a diesel locomotive pulls a long train of passenger coaches along tracks between two lines of white concrete wall; a watchtower stands on the left, tall lamp posts line the tracks and dry grass and weeds fill the foreground.
The Wall and a watchtower along the railway at Staaken in October 1986, seen from West Berlin as a transit train from Hamburg passes; in 1961 the GDR's Staaken station lay on this line just beyond the border Photo: Roehrensee. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Ten days after the sector border was sealed, the Stasi's daily situation report of 24 August 1961 (No. 477/61) noted that breakthroughs were falling as the barriers were strengthened. Even so, it listed five cases on 23 August in which people got from the GDR into West Berlin across the outer ring.

The first was at the railway. At 2.30 a.m. an engine driver from Wustermark broke through the border towards West Berlin in the section of Staaken station, Kreis Nauen. The report says only that he made use of shunting operations to do it; it does not say how he crossed.

Three days earlier West Berlin police had reported that on the night of 20 to 21 August some 150 FDJ members had begun putting up a second fence along Nennhauser Damm and Finkenkruger Weg in Staaken, and that nine layers of barbed wire already ran from the level of the Brunsbütteler Damm to Staaken station.

Sources

GDR records

Historians and memorials

Facts checked against the sources: September 2026

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Berlin Experiences, “An engine driver uses the night shunting at Staaken station”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/wustermark-engine-driver-staaken-station-1961/ (accessed [date]).

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