Hasso Herschel
tunnel builder and escape helper
Named in 6 stories, 1961–1971: 3 successful escapes and 3 failed attempts. At least 30 people reached the West in these events.
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.
7 August 1962
The Betrayed Kiefholzstraße Tunnel
Several escape-helper groups joined forces on a tunnel to a small house on Kiefholzstraße for a planned mass escape, but a Stasi informer among the couriers betrayed it and dozens of would-be refugees were arrested.
14 September 1962 – 15 September 1962
Tunnel 29
Around 30 helpers, mostly students, dug a tunnel from a factory on Bernauer Straße to a cellar in East Berlin; 29 people escaped through it over two days while an American TV crew filmed.
February 1963
The betrayed second tunnel from Bernauer Straße 78
Tunnel 29's builders dug again from the same cellars; on breakthrough day Stasi officers lay in wait at Brunnenstraße 45. The diggers noticed in time, but 14 would-be escapees and three couriers were arrested.
1964 – November 1967
The Cadillac with a dashboard hideout
Escape helper Burkhart Veigel used a Cadillac DeVille with a hiding place behind the dashboard to smuggle refugees out of the GDR for about three years.
February 1971
Tunnel 71 – The Last Tunnel under Bernauer Straße
Hasso Herschel's team lived underground for nine weeks digging a tunnel beneath Bernauer Straße, but came within ten metres of their goal before GDR border troops dug it up.
Named alongside
- Ulrich Pfeifer (2 stories)
- Burkhart Veigel (1 story)
- Fritz Wagner (1 story)
- Harry Seidel (1 story)
- Joachim Rudolph (1 story)