Glienicker Brücke and Klein Glienicke
The Havel bridge between Potsdam and West Berlin, and the East German enclave of Klein Glienicke beside it.
August 1961
Rita Bergemann and Michael Reck swim the Havel from Sacrow
A good two weeks after the Wall went up, a young Potsdam couple swam roughly 300 metres across the narrowest part of the Havel from Sacrow to Moorlake, just as a patrol boat turned away.
August 1961
Peter Mindorf walks away from his post in Klein Glienicke
An Oberwachtmeister of the Potsdam riot-police training unit, on guard in Klein Glienicke, asked to go to the toilet and walked off to West Berlin with his submachine gun and 80 rounds.
26 November 1961
Lothar Lehmann – a young policeman swims from Sacrow
A 19-year-old member of the Groß Glienicke readiness police slipped into the Havel at Sacrow wearing a life jacket; the cold water caused a shock and he died after being pulled out by guards.
16 February 1962
A mother and her five-year-old jump from a balcony at Klein Glienicke
On 16 February 1962 a 25-year-old woman and her 5-year-old son jumped from the balcony of a house near the Böttcherberg cemetery into West Berlin. West Berlin police forced the border guards who were firing at them to take cover.
11 June 1962
Erna Kelm – swimming belt under her clothes
On Whit Monday 1962 an angler found the body of 53-year-old Erna Kelm from Sacrow in the Havel; she wore a swimming belt under her clothes and had apparently tried to swim to West Berlin.
19 November 1962
Horst Plischke – missing in the Havel for four months
A 23-year-old from Potsdam went into the Havel north of the Glienicke Bridge before dawn; guards spotted him and fired, and he drowned. His body surfaced four months later.
20 November 1963 – 21 November 1963
Hubert Hohlbein – under the Jungfernsee in a diving suit
Wearing a diving suit and weight belt, 21-year-old Hubert Hohlbein swam submerged from near Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam to the West Berlin shore by the Glienicker Brücke.
28 July 1964
Norbert Wolscht and Rainer Gneiser – homemade diving gear in the Havel
Two 20-year-old friends from Freiberg in Saxony tried to reach West Berlin underwater through the Havel near Potsdam using self-built breathing equipment; both drowned in the night of 27–28 July 1964.
7 May 1965
Roofers escape from the Klein Glienicke chapel
Two roofers repairing the chapel roof in the GDR exclave of Klein Glienicke disarmed one of their guards and crossed the Wall with a ladder into Zehlendorf.
15 November 1968
Deserting policeman and border soldier die near Klein Glienicke
A 21-year-old Volkspolizist deserting towards West Berlin opened fire on a border patrol vehicle in Babelsberg Park, killing driver Rolf Henniger, and was himself shot dead by the patrol leader.
26 July 1973
The Klein Glienicke Family Tunnel
Two brothers, their wives and five children escaped from the GDR exclave of Klein Glienicke through a 19-metre tunnel dug with a child's spade during a heatwave.
27 August 1976
A home-made ladder from the garden at Am Böttcherberg
A painter, his wife and their four-year-old child cut through the rear fence opposite their garden in the Klein Glienicke enclave and climbed the 3.5 m Wall with a ladder they had built themselves.
8 October 1986
A landscape architect dives through the Jungfernsee barrier
A 29-year-old landscape architect in a diving suit slipped through a corroded gap in the underwater barrier at Nedlitz and swam to West Berlin north of the Glienicker Brücke.
9 December 1987
Wolga car on the Glienicke Bridge
Two men from Potsdam tried to ram a Wolga M 21 through the barriers on the Glienicke Bridge but were stopped at the very first gate.
10 March 1988
Truck full of gas cylinders over the Glienicke Bridge
Three men drove a truck disguised as a hazardous-goods transport and loaded with 92 empty gas cylinders through four barriers on the Glienicke Bridge. It was the first successful escape over the bridge.
