Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag
The Gate stood just inside the East; the Reichstag and the Spree bank beside it were on the border.
The Wall stood directly behind the Reichstag, on the border between the districts of Mitte and Tiergarten, and the stretch of the Spree that the new parliament buildings cross today formed the border until 1990.1 The Brandenburg Gate stood in the middle of the border strip, and the Reichstag immediately against the Wall on the West Berlin side.2
The earliest records come from the first weeks of the closure. On 13 August 1961 people in a crowd at the new fence in Ebertstraße cut the wire while the guards were not looking, and on 8 September a Barkas van drove through the right-hand passage of the Gate at about 70 km/h. Two days later the 18-year-old policeman Gerd Sommerlatte crossed the wire with his weapon. After that the records move to the river. Klaus Schröter tried to dive through the Spree in a home-made weighted suit in 1963 and drowned after guards shot him; Heinz Sokolowski was shot at the Wall between the Reichstag and the Gate in 1965. In the 1980s people still got across: in September 1986 a tower guard climbed the metal fence on the Spree behind the Reichstag, and in August 1988 four East Germans swam the Spree near the Reichstag, watched by West Berliners. In February 1989 Martin Notev was pulled back from the western quay wall by a patrol-boat crew while his two companions got out.
Today the Wall's course is marked in stone from the Gate past the Reichstag to the Spree.1 Three memorials stand between the Sandkrugbrücke and the Gate: the white crosses on the Spree bank, first set up by West Berliners in 1971; Ben Wagin's Parliament of Trees, made from elements of the rear wall; and the Bundestag's Wall memorial in the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, where a band of Wall segments crosses the basement on the original line.23
Sources for this text
- Das Reichstagsgebäude und seine historischen OrteDeutscher Bundestag
- Mauerweg: Vom Nordbahnhof zum Potsdamer Platzberlin.de
- Das Mauer-MahnmalDeutscher Bundestag
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
18 events: 7 successful escapes, 3 partly successful escapes, 1 failed attempt and 7 fatal attempts. At least 11 people reached the West in these events.
13 August 1961
Wire cutters at the Ebertstraße fence on the first day
On the Sunday the border was sealed, a crowd of East Berliners at the new fence in Ebertstraße cut through the wire when the guards were not looking. Some ran across to West Berlin before the fence was closed again.
17 August 1961
Across the Spree behind the Charité
On 17 August 1961 a person swam the Spree from behind the Charité hospital towards West Berlin. The Stasi said the confusing terrain there made the border very hard to secure.
23 August 1961
Sent to put flower bowls on the Wall
At 11.05 on 23 August 1961 a 30-year-old worker who was supposed to set up flower bowls on the barrier wall at the Brandenburg Gate escaped to the West, hidden from view by a lorry.
8 September 1961
A Barkas van breaks through at the Brandenburg Gate
At 2.50 in the morning a Barkas van drove at about 70 km/h through the right-hand side of the Brandenburg Gate, which was secured with metal poles, and stopped on the western side.
10 September 1961
Policeman Gerd Sommerlatte flees at the Brandenburg Gate and is kidnapped back
Posted to the Brandenburg Gate after the border closed, an 18-year-old policeman fled across the wire with his weapon rather than risk having to shoot at people. Less than three weeks later the Stasi had him abducted back to East Berlin.
10 December 1961 – 11 December 1961
Ingo Krüger – a diver's attempt to reach his fiancée
Separated from his West Berlin fiancée by the Wall, a 21-year-old cook and sport diver entered the Spree in diving gear near Friedrichstraße station; he drowned, and she watched from the far bank as a body was pulled from the water.
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.
4 November 1963
Klaus Schröter – homemade diving suit at the Reichstag
Engineer Klaus Schröter sold his television to buy breathing gear, sewed himself a weighted diving suit and tried to cross the Spree underwater near the Reichstag; guards shot him and he drowned.
January 1964
Jumping onto the Moscow–Paris Express behind Friedrichstraße
In January 1964 a group of young East Berliners jumped, alone or in pairs, from a hiding place just behind Friedrichstraße station onto the westbound Moscow–Paris Express. The route was discovered when Karl-Heinz Richter stumbled, was badly hurt and was arrested.
19 January 1964
Wounded teenager pulled over the Wall at the Brandenburg Gate
A youth ran for the Wall south of the Brandenburg Gate, was shot in the leg, limped along the Wall and was pulled over by West Berlin police officers.
25 November 1965
Heinz Sokolowski – shot at the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate
Former journalist and political prisoner Heinz Sokolowski, 47, had reached the Wall between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate when a guard shot him in the abdomen.
18 February 1968 – 19 February 1968
Elke and Dieter Weckeiser shot opposite the Reichstag
A young married couple from Fürstenwalde were fired on from a watchtower as they crawled through the first barbed wire opposite the Reichstag; both died of their wounds.
27 April 1973
Manfred Gertzki's armoured escape attempt at the Reichstag
Wearing a home-made bulletproof vest and a steel-masked helmet, engineer Manfred Gertzki crept along the Spree bank by the Reichstag. He was shot two metres from the demarcation line and pushed into the river, where the armour dragged him down.
May 1977 – 27 July 1977
Henri Weise found drowned in the Spree at the Marschallbrücke
A 22-year-old from Thuringia whose applications to leave the GDR had been refused left his father's East Berlin flat on 17 May 1977 and never came back. Two months later his body was found in the Spree water barrier at the Marschallbrücke; he had probably tried to swim to West Berlin.
27 September 1986
A tower guard climbs the fence at the Spree behind the Reichstag
At midday on a Saturday a 22-year-old East German soldier on watch near the Brandenburg Gate slipped away while his partner was briefly gone and climbed a metal fence on the Spree behind the Reichstag into West Berlin.
21 August 1988
Four swim the Spree by the Reichstag as West Berliners watch
Four East Germans fled through the Spree near the Reichstag in front of many West Berlin onlookers; the crew of the pursuing border patrol boat did not open fire and all four reached the West unhurt.
25 September 1988
Two young men run through the Brandenburg Gate and stop at a warning shot
On the evening of 25 September 1988 two young East Berliners ran through the Brandenburg Gate towards the West; they stopped when a guard fired a warning shot and were led away.
14 February 1989
Martin Notev is dragged back out of the Spree at the West Berlin bank
Martin Notev and two young neighbours smashed through the barriers with a truck and jumped into the Spree near the Reichstag. The neighbours escaped; Notev was pulled back by the hair from the West Berlin quay wall by a GDR patrol boat crew.
