Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

Methods

Ziplines and cables

Sliding or climbing hand over hand along a line stretched above the border strip.

A line fixed high on both sides carried people over the whole border strip at once, and in Berlin that strip was typically about 70 metres wide.1

The method is rare, and every case on this site worked differently. On 27 December 1962 the circus artiste Horst Klein tried to cross the Teltow Canal along a high-voltage line at the Späthbrücke; he lost his strength, fell onto the eastern bank and was fetched by West Berlin firemen in a rubber dinghy. On 28 July 1965 the Holzapfel family from Leipzig hid in a top-floor toilet of the Haus der Ministerien, the East German government building beside the border, until it emptied, climbed onto the roof after dark, threw a nylon line weighted with a hammer to helpers on the western side and slid down a steel cable of about eight millimetres, fixed to a flagpole and anchored 100 to 120 metres away. On 31 March 1983 Holger Bethke and Michael Becker shot a line over the strip from a Treptow tenement with a bow and arrow; Ingo Bethke, who had fled in 1975, secured the cable in the West, and the two rode over on home-made wooden pulleys.

In the mid-1960s the GDR tore down several buildings along the border to give its guards an unobstructed view and a clear field of fire.2 The three cases here used structures that still stood close to the line: a power line across a canal, a government building and a Treptow tenement.

Sources for this text

  1. Aufbau und Entwicklung der Berliner MauerLandesdenkmalamt Berlin
  2. The Berlin Wall (topics)Stiftung Berliner Mauer

Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.

3 events: 3 successful escapes. At least 6 people reached the West in these events.

Black-and-white photo: street signs for Niederkirchnerstraße and Wilhelmstraße in front of a graffiti-covered wall; behind it an empty strip, a second wall and large stone buildings.
The Berlin Wall at the corner of Niederkirchnerstraße and Wilhelmstraße, 1988, looking east from West Berlin. Here the Wall ran past the GDR's Haus der Ministerien, from whose roof the Holzapfel family escaped along a cable in 1965. Photo: Fortepan / Urbán Tamás. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Related methods: window jumps, over the wall, aircraft and balloons

  1. 27 December 1962

    Circus artiste Horst Klein on the high-voltage line

    A circus artiste tried to cross the Teltow Canal by climbing along a high-voltage line, lost his strength and fell onto the eastern bank, from where West Berlin firemen fetched him in a rubber dinghy.

    Reached the West · Treptow-Köpenick / Neukölln

  2. 28 July 1965 – 29 July 1965

    The Holzapfel family's cable slide from the Haus der Ministerien

    A Leipzig family hid in the East German government's Haus der Ministerien, climbed onto its roof after dark and slid on a steel cable over the Wall into West Berlin.

    Reached the West · Mitte

  3. 31 March 1983

    Holger Bethke and Michael Becker slide over the Wall on a steel cable

    Using a bow and arrow to shoot a line over the border strip, Holger Bethke and his friend Michael Becker rigged a steel cable and rode home-made pulleys over the Wall from Treptow.

    Reached the West · Treptow-Köpenick