False papers and disguises
Borrowed passports, forged papers and uniforms used to walk out through the official crossings.
Checkpoint Charlie was reserved for Allied military personnel, diplomats and people from abroad,1 and travellers to the West passed through Friedrichstraße station by a separate entrance hall, the Tränenpalast.2 The Chronik der Mauer lists forged passports among the escape helpers' methods and shows prepared West German passports.3
In the first days a bluff could do: on 15 August 1961 Erika Schallert talked her way past the men outside a Bernauer Straße house with the fabric for her wedding dress and walked across the street. Then came other people's passports. Hasso Herschel left on a Swiss passport in October 1961 and Joachim Neumann, his hair dyed to match the photograph, in December; both went on to dig tunnels. In 1962 Reinhard Spiller drove his parents out through Checkpoint Charlie on a fellow student's Austrian passport and a forged diplomatic pass. In May 1964 Stasi reports record two look-alike escapes at Friedrichstraße within four days, on a West German woman's identity card and on a "lost" Danish passport.
On this site the successes with borrowed papers cluster in 1961 to 1964, and most of the cases from the 1970s failed. A man in a US Army uniform was detained at Checkpoint Charlie in 1973, and couriers of the Dawid organisation who were to hand their own papers to look-alikes were arrested in Potsdam in 1976. Two late successes stand out: Stasi officer Werner Stiller used his own service pass at the Stasi's border gate in Friedrichstraße station in January 1979, and in May 1987 a West German student gave his passport to an East Berliner who looked like him, and went to prison for it.
Sources for this text
- The Border Crossing (Checkpoint Charlie, historical site)Stiftung Berliner Mauer
- Bahnhof Friedrichstraße: ein Museum der ErinnerungenChronik der Mauer
- Flucht, Fluchthilfe, WiderstandChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
29 events: 20 successful escapes, 8 failed attempts and 1 fatal attempt. At least 25 people reached the West in these events.
Related methods: hidden in vehicles, guards who fled
14 August 1961
Dr. G. rides an ambulance through the Brunnenstraße crossing and stays in the West
In the first night after the border was sealed, a doctor accompanying an ambulance from East to West Berlin through the Brunnenstraße crossing did not go back.
15 August 1961
Renate Reich crosses at Harzer Straße on a forged identity card
Her West Berlin father came for her with a forged identity card. Finding the checks at Heinrich-Heine-Straße too thorough, they found a lone guard in the Harzer Straße who looked at their papers under a street lamp and let them through.
15 August 1961
Erika Schallert walks across Bernauer Straße with her wedding-dress fabric
Two days after the border was closed, a student whose fiancé lived in West Berlin talked her way past men outside a house on Bernauer Straße by pointing to the fabric for her wedding dress, then walked across the street into West Berlin while helpers distracted them.
18 August 1961
Two 'postal workers' cycle to the West
Five days after the border was sealed, two men in postal service uniforms told the guards at the Brunnenstraße crossing they had to check cable lines at the border, were let through, and simply cycled into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
The chauffeur who was looking for his ring
On 23 August 1961 a workers' militia driver in uniform pulled up at the Dresdner Straße checkpoint and told the police he had lost his ring there. While pretending to look for it, he jumped over the wall.
24 August 1961
Posing as bricklayers at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße wall
Early on 24 August 1961 two people in bricklayers' clothes told the guards at the Fritz-Heckert-Straße control point that they belonged to the bricklayers' brigade or had been sent to repair the border fortifications – and then got over the wall.
25 August 1961
A young man mingles with the builders at the Oberbaumbrücke
On 25 August 1961 a young man of 18 to 20 slipped in among the construction workers at the Oberbaumbrücke control point and got away to West Berlin while the guards were not paying attention.
September 1961
Ingrid crosses at Friedrichstraße on her fiancé's sister's US passport
In late September 1961 a graduate student in West Berlin walked his East Berlin fiancée, her hair dyed to match the photo, through the Friedrichstraße/Zimmerstraße crossing on his sister's US passport.
25 September 1961
Out in American uniform jackets on a US sightseeing bus
On 25 September 1961 several young people boarded American buses at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptow, put on American uniform jackets inside and were taken into West Berlin unhindered.
6 October 1961
Sewer escape helper Carl-August von Halle walks into a Stasi trap
A West Berlin architecture student who had helped East Germans escape through the sewers was lured into a trap by a Stasi informer and arrested at Friedrichstraße station.
21 October 1961
Hasso Herschel leaves on a Swiss passport
Weeks after the Wall went up, the later tunnel builder Hasso Herschel left East Berlin on someone else's Swiss passport and immediately began looking for a way to get his sister out.
21 December 1961
Joachim Neumann's Swiss passport
Engineering student Joachim Neumann dyed his hair, filled his pockets with Swiss odds and ends and played an aloof Swiss tourist to pass the Friedrichstraße checkpoint on a Swiss passport supplied through West Berlin student escape helpers.
29 March 1962
Johannes M. offers a guard a thousand marks at Ruppiner Straße
Johannes M. tried to buy his and his girlfriend's way through the border; the guard agreed, then alerted his comrades.
May 1962
Reinhard Spiller drives his parents out on a forged diplomatic pass
In 1962 the engineering student Reinhard Spiller, who had got to West Berlin himself two days after the Wall went up, drove his parents out through Checkpoint Charlie using a fellow student's Austrian passport and a forged diplomatic pass, then helped about 50 more people out the same way.
7 May 1963
Fake UN diplomats: the taxi driver's 'CD' car caught on Karl-Marx-Allee
A West Berlin taxi owner carrying a UN diplomatic passport in a Swiss man's name said he had already driven 16 people through Checkpoint Charlie in cars with 'CD' plates on six trips since April 1963. On 7 May 1963 he was arrested on Karl-Marx-Allee.
16 May 1964
The borrowed identity card: a wife crosses on a stranger's papers
A man who had fled the GDR in 1963 took a West German apprentice from Holstein on a trip to East Berlin and kept her papers 'for safety'. Someone left through Friedrichstraße on them – according to the Stasi, his wife, who resembled her.
19 May 1964
A 'lost' Danish passport at Friedrichstraße
Fifteen minutes after someone had left East Berlin on her passport, a Danish woman turned up at the Friedrichstraße crossing to report that her papers had gone missing.
April 1965
A West Berliner jailed after an East German fled on his papers, April 1965
In April 1965 an East German used a West Berliner's identity papers to flee to the West; the West Berliner, who had visited relatives in East Berlin that weekend, was jailed there, the AP reported.
16 August 1965
In the shadow of a tourist bus at Checkpoint Charlie
A young man walked out of the Checkpoint Charlie control area unchecked, keeping to the blind side of a West German coach full of American tourists.
24 July 1971
A Danish tour guide, a doctored passport and a 16-year-old from Rostock
A Copenhagen tour guide tried to take a 16-year-old from Rostock through the Friedrichstraße crossing on a doctored Danish passport and was caught in the act.
31 October 1973
Juergen Vicari tries to walk through Checkpoint Charlie in a US Army uniform
On 31 October 1973 East German guards at Checkpoint Charlie detained a man seen in US uniform with sergeant's stripes. According to his fiancée he was Juergen Vicari, an East Berlin actor who had planned to walk out through the checkpoint that day.
16 February 1974
A stranger in US uniform is held back at Checkpoint Charlie
At midday on 16 February 1974 two men in US Army uniform walked towards Checkpoint Charlie from the East. One was a US military policeman; the other, who had fallen in beside him, could show no ID and speak no English, and East German guards took him away.
29 March 1974
Czesław Kukuczka: an exit visa, then a shot in the back at Friedrichstraße
A Polish fireman threatened to blow up the Polish embassy in East Berlin unless he was let through to West Berlin. He was given an exit visa and taken to the Friedrichstraße crossing by a Stasi officer, then shot in the back during the clearance procedure and bled to death in the Stasi prison hospital.
4 February 1976
Look-alikes for hire: the Dawid organisation's couriers arrested in Potsdam
Three West Berliners went into the GDR as tourists. They were to hand their own identity papers, clothes and handbags to two East Germans, who would then leave through the Invalidenstraße crossing as their look-alikes. The Stasi arrested them in Potsdam.
15 November 1977
In a US Air Force uniform at Checkpoint Charlie
An East Berlin electrician who wanted to work as a musician in the West tried to leave through Checkpoint Charlie dressed as a US Air Force NCO, driven there by the American sergeant who had supplied the uniform, but was recognised and arrested by the Stasi.
June 1978
Two East Germans escape in a Belgian diplomat's car
In June 1978 two East Germans who had befriended a Belgian diplomat in East Berlin knocked him out, altered his identity papers and drove his diplomatic car into West Berlin.
July 1978
Three students disguised as a border patrol climb the Wall on folding ladders
Three East German students got into the death strip in a car with military markings; the two men, disguised as border guards, climbed the Wall on folding ladders they had brought, and the woman had come in hidden in the back of the car.
18 January 1979 – 19 January 1979
Stasi officer Werner Stiller walks out through the Friedrichstraße agents' gate
After breaking open safes at Stasi headquarters, First Lieutenant Werner Stiller of the foreign intelligence service used his service pass to get through the Stasi's own border gate at Friedrichstraße station and rode the U-Bahn into West Berlin.
May 1987
Thomas Mahler gives his passport to an East Berlin youth
In May 1987 Thomas Mahler, a law student from Wiesbaden visiting East Berlin with his scout group, gave his passport to a young East Berliner who looked like him. The youth got out; Mahler was arrested at the border when he tried to report his passport missing.