Staaken
The village on the western edge of Spandau that the border cut through.
Staaken was cut in two in 1945, when the western part of the village was handed to the Soviets in a territory exchange, so from 1961 the border ran inside Spandau. Two crossings linked the halves: the Heerstraße crossing, used for transit traffic, and the railway crossing, nicknamed "Elefantentor" for its heavy rolling gates.1 Staaken station was the border station of the northern transit line, where the GDR had trains searched with customs dogs, and the embankment was sealed off by two walls until 1989.2
The early records belong to the railway and the village streets. On 19 August 1961 the guards let through a Konsum delivery van they knew until it sped over the wire; on 23 August an engine driver used the night shunting at Staaken station to cross; on 31 August two youths climbed out of the cloakroom window of the Volkshaus. On 5 December Harry Deterling drove a passenger train past its last stop at Albrechtshof and into West Berlin, where 25 of those on board stayed by the Chronik der Mauer's count, and on 9 December the escape helper Dieter Wohlfahrt was shot cutting the fence at Bergstraße. Later came machines: an armoured 18-tonne bulldozer flattened the fences in 1966 with two couples and a child aboard, while a Trabant in 1984 and a tipper truck carrying a ladder in 1989 were stopped. At the Heerstraße checkpoint, hidden passengers were found in a customs-sealed van in 1976 and a car boot in 1977.
West-Staaken returned to Berlin in 1990, so the former crossing now lies almost two kilometres inside the city boundary.3 A wooden cross and a stele of 2011 for Dieter Wohlfahrt stand on Bergstraße, a memorial site at Heerstraße and Bergstraße hosts a commemoration every 12 August, and a cross and stele for Willi Block stand at the end of the Finkenkruger Weg.32
Sources for this text
- Grenzübergängevisitspandau.de (Bezirk Spandau)
- Mauerweg: Von Staaken nach Hennigsdorfberlin.de
- Mauerweg: Von Wannsee nach Staakenberlin.de
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
18 events: 9 successful escapes, 7 failed attempts and 2 fatal attempts. At least 39 people reached the West in these events.
19 August 1961
A Konsum delivery van rolls through the wire at Staaken
The guards knew the van – it regularly delivered to the Volkshaus restaurant – so nobody checked it until it sped up and drove over the wire barrier into West Berlin.
23 August 1961
An engine driver uses the night shunting at Staaken station
At 2.30 a.m. on 23 August 1961 an engine driver from Wustermark took advantage of shunting work at Staaken station, then on the GDR side of the border, and crossed into West Berlin.
31 August 1961
Two youths leave the Volkshaus Staaken through the cloakroom window
At 3.45 p.m. on 31 August 1961 two youths climbed out of the cloakroom window of the Volkshaus in Staaken, made for the border fence and were over it before the guard alerted by a signal device arrived.
September 1961
Sent to help build the Wall, Albrecht Roos crawls under the fence from Falkensee to Spandau
Sent by the Kalinin engineering school for agricultural technology to help build the Wall, Albrecht Roos used a meal break, said he felt sick and crawled under the barbed wire through a ditch, crossing from Falkensee into Spandau in September 1961.
5 December 1961
The last train to freedom
Locomotive driver Harry Deterling drove a passenger train at speed through the terminus at Albrechtshof and across the border into West Berlin.
9 December 1961
Dieter Wohlfahrt, escape helper shot at Staaken
A 20-year-old West Berlin resident with Austrian citizenship was shot while cutting through the border fence at Staaken to help a woman escape; he had been lured into an ambush and lay for more than an hour in the border strip without help.
26 January 1962
A young woman is shot at and arrested by the fence on Nennhauser Damm
At about 08.30 on 26 January 1962 a woman of about 18 who was near the border fence on Nennhauser Damm in Staaken was arrested by a two-man border-police patrol. Before the arrest a border guard fired four or five submachine-gun shots at her; the West Berlin police thought she was probably hurt.
1 January 1966
A weapons NCO and his fiancée cross at Staaken despite 139 rounds
On the evening of 1 January 1966 an NVA weapons NCO of the 34th Border Regiment and his fiancée crossed the border at Staaken into West Berlin. Guards fired 139 rounds without stopping them; eight or nine bullets hit three residential buildings in West Berlin, the Stasi reported.
7 February 1966
Willi Block – trapped in the wire and shot at Staaken
Caught in a roll of barbed wire in full view of West Berlin police, former border policeman Willi Block was shot dead after a stand-off; the regimental commander himself fired.
11 September 1966
Bulldozer through the Staaken border
Two married couples and a three-year-old child flattened the Staaken border fences with an armoured 18-tonne bulldozer until a tree stopped them in Spandau.
3 August 1973
A Telefunken worker with a man in his boot at Staaken
A West Berliner employed by Telefunken tried to bring an East German into West Berlin through the Staaken crossing in his car boot and was arrested.
13 August 1973
A courier of the Jensch organisation is caught at Staaken with a woman in the boot
A West Berliner working for the escape organisation of Jensch was arrested at the Staaken crossing with a woman hidden in his car boot; the Stasi said he had already taken at least seven East Germans out on the Horst–Staaken transit route since June.
16 July 1976
Sealed van of the Mierendorff escape organisation stopped at Staaken
An escape helper from near Hamburg picked up a man, his wife and a drugged child on the transit motorway and hid them in a customs-sealed van with a manipulated seal fitting; followed by two Wartburgs, he was stopped at the Staaken crossing and the van was opened.
2 October 1977
Two young women in a car boot at Staaken
A West Berliner working for an escape-helper group tried to take two women in their early twenties out in his boot through the Staaken crossing – one of them the daughter of an SED factory director, who wanted to marry her Turkish boyfriend in West Berlin.
22 April 1978
A 19-year-old reaches Staaken with a bullet wound in his hand
In the early hours of 22 April 1978 a 19-year-old East German turned up at the S-Bahn station in Staaken with a gunshot wound in his hand. He told police he had been fired on as he crossed the border.
26 April 1981
A young woman climbs the Wall at Spandau under fire
At 1.43 a.m. in the night of 25–26 April 1981 a young East Berlin woman climbed over the Wall at Spandau; guards in a watchtower fired at her and missed.
2 June 1984
Trabant against the Staaken barrier
A 38-year-old driver tried to force his Trabant through the Staaken crossing but crashed into a heavy barrier at the passport control line.
10 March 1989
Tipper truck and ladder in Staaken
Three men tried to flatten the border fences in Staaken with a tipper truck and climb the Wall with a ladder, but the truck stuck in the second fence and one of them was shot.