Checkpoint Charlie
The Allied crossing point on Friedrichstraße, at the corner of Zimmerstraße.
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.
18 June 1962
Rudolf Müller's Tunnel and the Death of Reinhold Huhn
Rudolf Müller brought his wife, two children and sister-in-law through a self-dug tunnel to West Berlin, shooting dead the young border guard Reinhold Huhn when he tried to check their papers.
17 August 1962
Peter Fechter bleeds to death at Zimmerstraße
18-year-old bricklayer Peter Fechter was shot while climbing the Wall on Zimmerstraße and left to die at its foot for about 50 minutes in full view of West Berliners; his companion escaped.
4 May 1963
Two Swiss typesetters and the hidden railwayman from Dresden
Two young Swiss men had built a hiding place into their Chevrolet to smuggle out a woman from Dresden; when she would not come, they took her young colleague instead – and all three were caught at Checkpoint Charlie.
5 May 1963
Under the barrier in an Austin-Healey Sprite
An Austrian, Heinz Meixner, drove a low-slung Austin-Healey Sprite with its windscreen removed under the barrier at Checkpoint Charlie, carrying his fiancée and her mother hidden in the car.
23 May 1964
Smuggled out in a BMW Isetta
Klaus-Günter Jacobi hid his friend Manfred in a modified BMW Isetta, the smallest car ever used for an escape, and drove him under the barrier to the West.
12 July 1964
The Lloyd 600 with a secretary behind the back seat
An Egyptian geology student drove a small Lloyd back to West Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie; in a hiding place at the back was a secretary from the GDR Building Academy.
19 August 1964
Two Spanish workers and a hidden Pankow man at Checkpoint Charlie
At a quarter to one in the morning two Spanish workers who lived in West Berlin drove up to Checkpoint Charlie in a Renault. The controllers found a young man from Pankow in a hiding place built into the car.
10 October 1964
A sleeping pill for the four-year-old: the American's Ford at Checkpoint Charlie
A young American Lufthansa loader built a hiding place behind the back seat of a Ford to bring out a colleague's cousin and her small son, who was given a sleeping pill. They were caught at Checkpoint Charlie.
31 January 1965
Kuo Ying-Hu's Mercedes: three people in the boot
A Chinese journalist living in East Berlin, who had permission to drive his Mercedes into West Berlin, tried to take three people from Pankow, born in 1904, 1934 and 1960, out in his boot.
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.
19 September 1965
A Teltow schoolgirl behind the dashboard of a Peugeot
A teenage girl from Teltow, whose parents had already fled, was hidden behind the dashboard of a Peugeot driven by two young Americans living in West Berlin. She was found at Checkpoint Charlie.
9 January 1972
The heaters' tunnel under the Zimmerstraße
Two brothers and a friend dug a short tunnel from the sealed border cellars of an East Berlin electricity-company building near Checkpoint Charlie and came up just beyond the Wall.
5 January 1974
Burkhard Niering's hostage escape attempt at Checkpoint Charlie
A 23-year-old conscript of the Volkspolizei alert units left his guard post with his submachine gun, took a Stasi passport controller hostage at Checkpoint Charlie and tried to push through to the West. He was shot at the last barrier.
3 April 1975
Herbert Halli shot while turning back at Zimmerstraße
After a drinking session on the Palast der Republik building site, 21-year-old Herbert Halli climbed into the border strip at Zimmerstraße. He had already turned back when a guard shot him in the back.
15 November 1977
In a US Air Force uniform at Checkpoint Charlie
An East Berlin musician 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 the Stasi was waiting.
26 May 1981
A Costa Rican diplomat's Ford Escort at Checkpoint Charlie
A urologist from San José who had studied medicine in Halle tried to use his diplomatic passport to drive an East German woman out in his boot – for a promised 10,000 Deutschmarks.
17 January 1986
Telecom fitter runs through Checkpoint Charlie
A 21-year-old East Berlin telecommunications fitter, installing surveillance cameras at Checkpoint Charlie, used an unguarded moment to sprint through the control area to West Berlin.
29 August 1986
Gravel truck through Checkpoint Charlie
Truck driver Hans-Joachim Pofahl, his partner and their eight-month-old baby smashed through Checkpoint Charlie in a truck loaded with five tonnes of gravel.
16 July 1988
Over the gate and into the control area at Checkpoint Charlie
In broad daylight a 23-year-old lorry driver working on Berlin building sites climbed a gate and a wire fence and tried to run through the control area at Checkpoint Charlie. Tourists on the western viewing platform photographed his arrest.
