By boat
Stolen boats, excursion ships, canoes and inflatable dinghies.
Boats are a small group on this site, spread between 1961 and 1985. On the afternoon of 13 August 1961 two youths crossed the Britzer Zweigkanal in an inflatable dinghy, and a third swam across at the same place soon after. On 8 June 1962 young East Berliners took over the excursion ship "Friedrich Wolf", locked the captain and engineer below deck and swung into the Landwehrkanal, fired on by three GDR border boats; 13 people and a baby reached the West and nobody was hurt.
From the mid-1960s the border troops had a boat company at Villa Starck in Potsdam, patrolling the Jungfernsee, Havel and Griebnitzsee with speedboats; a barracks followed in the 1970s, and a boat hall with a crane was built at the water.1 Two of the later boat escapes on this site were made by the men who crewed the boats. On 1 December 1971 two 20-year-old guards disarmed a comrade and took border patrol boat 673 across the Spree from Mühlenstraße to Kreuzberg in daylight, a crossing of about 80 metres. On 19 September 1985 a water police officer faked a routine patrol in his service boat and motored from the boat company's base across the water border to West Berlin; the Chronik der Mauer tells that story on its page about the company.1
Not everyone who tried the water border was a GDR citizen. Franciszek Piesik, a Polish inland-waterways worker, rowed across the Oder into the GDR, stole a motorboat at Hennigsdorf on 17 October 1967 and, when he was spotted, drowned trying to swim the Nieder Neuendorfer See to West Berlin.
Sources for this text
- Bootskompanie der DDR-GrenztruppenChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
6 events: 4 successful escapes and 2 fatal attempts. At least 20 people reached the West in these events.
Related methods: swimming
13 August 1961
An inflatable dinghy across the Britzer Zweigkanal
On the afternoon of 13 August 1961 two young people crossed the Britzer Zweigkanal in Johannisthal in an inflatable dinghy. About twenty minutes later a third youth swam across at the same spot.
5 June 1962
Axel Hannemann – from a cargo barge into the Spree
A 17-year-old apprentice from Cottbus jumped from the Marschallbrücke onto a westbound cargo barge; when the skipper stopped, he jumped into the Spree and was shot a few metres from the West Berlin bank.
8 June 1962
The excursion ship "Friedrich Wolf"
Young East Berliners commandeered the passenger steamer "Friedrich Wolf", locked up its crew and swerved under heavy fire into West Berlin's Landwehrkanal.
17 October 1967
Franciszek Piesik – from the Oder to the Nieder Neuendorfer See
Polish inland-waterways worker Franciszek Piesik crossed the Oder into the GDR, stole a motorboat at Hennigsdorf and, when spotted, tried to swim the cold Nieder Neuendorfer See to West Berlin; he drowned.
1 December 1971
Two border guards take a patrol boat across the Spree
In December 1971 two 20-year-old GDR border guards disarmed a comrade, took the patrol boat moored at Mühlenstraße and crossed the Spree to Kreuzberg in broad daylight.
19 September 1985
A water police officer sails his patrol boat to the West
In September 1985 a GDR water police officer slipped away from his colleagues, boarded his service boat, faked a routine patrol and motored across the water border to West Berlin.
