Themes · People
Children and families
Escapes by parents with children, babies, siblings and whole families.
68 events: 55 successful escapes, 3 partly successful escapes, 8 failed attempts and 2 fatal attempts. At least 267 people reached the West in these events. The records span 1961–1989. Most used methods: hidden in vehicles 16, over the wall 15, window jumps 15.
Often together with: Escape helpers (21), Border houses (15), Shots fired (8), Fire-brigade nets and rescues (7), Stasi reports (7), Witness accounts (7)
August 1961
A hairdresser cuts the wire at the Kiefholzstraße allotments for his daughter
When the border closed, a hairdresser who had fled in 1958 cut the new wire at his allotment so that his married daughter could crawl across, and then kept cutting holes for others.
13 August 1961
Through the graveyard and the church gate: Hildegard K. and her son
On the night the border closed, a radio singer and her eldest son crept through back yards and the Elisabeth cemetery to the Reconciliation Church, whose gate to West Berlin was still open.
13 August 1961
Manfred Wenzel swims the Teltow Canal on the first evening
On the evening the border was sealed, a father slid into the Teltow Canal at Johannisthal and swam to Rudow with a briefcase in one hand. His wife and children followed a year later in an escape helper's car.
13 August 1961
A family walks out at the Heidekampweg before the fence goes up
At 10.30 a.m. on 13 August 1961 a man, a woman and a child left East Berlin over the Heidekampweg, where no barrier had yet been built.
13 August 1961
Over the sports ground in Dresdner Straße with a child and a suitcase
On 13 August 1961 a woman with a child and a suitcase left for West Berlin across the sports ground in Dresdner Straße.
14 August 1961
Peter Hohmann sprints past the guards at Brunnenstraße
A waiter who had gone back East on the night the border closed tried the Sophien cemetery the next day, then slipped past the first soldiers in Brunnenstraße and ran when the guard holding his identity card chased another refugee.
15 August 1961
Renate Reich crosses at Harzer Straße on a forged identity card
Her West Berlin father came for her with a forged identity card. Finding the checks at Heinrich-Heine-Straße too thorough, they found a lone guard in the Harzer Straße who looked at their papers under a street lamp and let them through.
17 August 1961
The Mathern family leaves by the ground floor
Alarmed when the first front doors on Bernauer Straße were locked, the Mathern family fled from their ground-floor flat on 17 August 1961.
24 August 1961
Parents and 14-year-old daughter rope down from Bernauer Straße 10
Probably on 24 August 1961 a married couple and their 14-year-old daughter let themselves down on a rope from a first-floor window.
26 August 1961
A family of five leaves through an allotment at Klemkestraße
On 26 August 1961 a family of five got past the Klemkestraße control point in Pankow by pottering about on an allotment plot until the guards stopped paying attention to them.
29 August 1961
A mother climbs the wall at Lohmühlenstraße with her child, helped from the West
On 29 August 1961 a woman climbed over the wall at Lohmühlenstraße in Treptow with her child while people on the West Berlin side helped her.
1 September 1961
A farmer's family leaves horse, cart and bicycles at the cut wire
On the evening of 1 September 1961 a farmer, his wife and their two children cut through the wire in the Groß Glienicke border sector and reached West Berlin, leaving a horse and cart and three bicycles behind.
5 September 1961
Karl-Heinz S. climbs down a fire brigade ladder while police hold the guards at bay
At 3 a.m. West Berlin police drew pistols and dazzled the guards with mirrors while the fire brigade set a ladder against the corner house for four escapees.
5 September 1961
Two women and a child jump from a first-floor flat in Waldemarstraße
On 5 September 1961 two women with a child jumped from a first-floor flat in Waldemarstraße onto West Berlin territory.
6 September 1961
Two guards let a woman with a baby through at the Puschkinallee
A woman whose husband was waiting on the other side asked a guard to let her through. He told her to come back after dark – and at 8.30 p.m. she crossed with a four-month-old child and a boy.
19 September 1961
Heavily pregnant Helga Knittel jumps first
The Knittel family called the West Berlin fire brigade, then jumped one after another from their second-floor window into its net: first the heavily pregnant mother, then the daughter, then the father.
19 September 1961
Three generations jump into the net at Bernauer Straße 10
At about 11.30 p.m. Mrs K., her daughter-in-law and her grandson Detlef jumped from the second floor into a West Berlin fire brigade net.
19 September 1961
Erich B.'s family jumps from Bernauer Straße 42
A family of five from Swinemünder Straße 23 jumped from the first floor of the neighbouring house into a fire brigade net; the father broke his thigh.
22 September 1961
Family F. jumps under fire from the third floor
While a border policeman tried to stop her with a warning shot and West Berlin police fired tear-gas cartridges at him, a mother jumped into the fire brigade's net; her husband threw down their five-year-old son and then jumped himself.
22 September 1961
Selma P. and her son Peter W. jump from the third floor
After telling relatives in the West, mother and son barricaded their door and waited for the fire brigade; both jumped into the net before the guards could break in.
23 September 1961 – 30 September 1961
Horst K. jumps, and a week later his wife follows with their baby
After a row with a party secretary, Horst K. jumped into a fire brigade net from a friend's lower flat; a week later his wife and five-month-old child escaped from the same flat.
24 September 1961
West Berlin youths cut the fence at the Dammweg for a woman and her child
On 24 September 1961 young West Berliners cut through the border fence at the Dammweg control point from the western side, allowing a woman and her child to escape.
25 September 1961
Rudolf B., his wife and son rope down from Bernauer Straße 5
A family let themselves down on a rope from their second-floor flat; the guards only noticed when a crowd gathered and the fire brigade arrived.
29 September 1961
Gerhard D.'s family escapes through a bricked-up cellar window
A neighbour reported West Berlin police loading things into a car; East Berlin police found the family's walled-up cellar window broken open and the four of them gone.
October 1961
Michael Synowzik through the sewer under Checkpoint Charlie
In October 1961 the schoolboy Michael Synowzik escaped from East Berlin with his father through the sewers under the Zimmerstraße at Checkpoint Charlie, a month after his older brother had fled through the sewers.
16 October 1961
Family D. jumps onto a truck's tarpaulin
A long-planned escape: at 12.30 a truck pulled up and a couple, their 15-year-old son and a friendly couple jumped onto its canvas cover.
3 December 1961
Two adults and three children cut the wire near Dreilinden
On 3 December 1961 two adults and three children escaped near the Dreilinden control point on the autobahn at Drewitz after cutting through the barbed wire unnoticed by the guards; the breakthrough was discovered at about 6.50 p.m.
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.
24 January 1962
The Becker Tunnel ("Tunnel 28")
Twin brothers dug a tunnel from the cellar of the family home on the border, and 28 people crawled through it to Frohnau in West Berlin in a single night.
16 February 1962
NCO Egon Z. knocks down his squad leader and flees with two women
A border troops NCO knocked out his squad leader and escaped near Gartenstraße together with his sister and her friend.
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.
22 February 1962
The Franzke brothers' first tunnel in the Heidelberger Straße is betrayed
Boris and Eduard Franzke dug a tunnel of more than 20 metres under the Heidelberger Straße to bring out their relatives. The plan was betrayed, and the family members waiting in the East were arrested.
10 April 1962
A nine-year-old jumps from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44
On 10 April 1962 a nine-year-old schoolboy jumped from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44 into the West Berlin fire brigade's jumping sheet. Border guards stopped a second child of the same age.
5 May 1962
The Pensioners' Tunnel (Thomas Tunnel)
A group of mostly elderly men led by 81-year-old Max Thomas dug an unusually tall tunnel from a chicken coop so that they and their wives could walk upright to West Berlin.
23 May 1962
Wilfried Tews swims the canal – border guard Peter Göring killed
A 14-year-old schoolboy from Erfurt swam the Berlin-Spandau Ship Canal under heavy fire and reached West Berlin badly wounded; in the exchange of fire with West Berlin police, 21-year-old border guard Peter Göring was killed by a ricochet.
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.
28 June 1962
The Betrayed Sebastianstraße Tunnel
Three West Berliners dug a tunnel to bring their wives and children out of East Berlin, but a Stasi informer had infiltrated the plan; Siegfried Noffke was shot dead when they broke through.
26 December 1962
The armoured bus of Boxing Day
On 26 December 1962 two families in a bus armoured with steel plates and fitted with a snowplough broke through the three barriers of the GDR control point at Drewitz and reached Dreilinden in West Berlin.
10 March 1963
The Aagaard Tunnel
A family in Glienicke spent five months digging a 50-metre tunnel by hand from their living room, hiding the sand inside their house, before 13 people crawled to West Berlin.
8 April 1963
A second tunnel from Heidelberger Straße 35 – Boris Franzke's last
A year after Heinz Jercha was shot at the same spot, escape helpers dug a new tunnel from Heidelberger Straße 35 to no. 75. Up to 20 people escaped through it before a resident noticed the broken cellar door.
9 September 1964
Fifteen people behind the pig carcasses
A trusted meat-transport driver took his wife, their eight children and his brother-in-law's family of five through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße checkpoint hidden among pig carcasses.
10 October 1964
A sleeping pill for the four-year-old: the American's Ford at Checkpoint Charlie
An American Lufthansa loader built a hiding place behind the back seat of a Ford to bring out a colleague's cousin and her four-year-old child, 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.
28 July 1965 – 29 July 1965
The Holzapfel family's cable slide from the Haus der Ministerien
A Leipzig family hid in the East German government's Haus der Ministerien, climbed onto its roof after dark and slid on a steel cable over the Wall into West Berlin.
14 March 1966
Children Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener shot in Treptow
Ten-year-old Jörg Hartmann and 13-year-old Lothar Schleusener slipped into the border strip in Treptow after dark and were shot by border guards; the regime told their families false stories about how they had died.
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.
20 October 1968
110 bottles of hydrogen and a plastic balloon – then two families climb the fence at Groß Glienicke
Two families from Premnitz ordered 110 bottles of hydrogen to fill home-made plastic balloons. When the balloons would not inflate, they crossed the fences in thick fog: five made it, and the father of one family was shot and caught at the last fence.
15 June 1971
A councillor, his wife and two small sons climb the Wall at Klein Glienicke with a fruit ladder
On the night the SED's VIII Party Congress opened, an NDPD town councillor and trainee editor, his wife and their sons aged two and a half years and six months climbed the Klein Glienicke wall with a neighbour's fruit ladder in pouring rain.
9 June 1972 – 10 June 1972
A 15-year-old crosses the Wall into Neukölln
In the night of 9 to 10 June 1972 a 15-year-old East German boy crossed the Wall into Neukölln, apparently unseen by the guards, and was reunited with relatives in the West.
29 December 1972
Ellen Thiemann's escape car stopped at the border
The journalist Ellen Thiemann planned to leave the GDR with her eleven-year-old son Carsten in a specially prepared car. On 29 December 1972 she and her husband were arrested and she was later sentenced to three years and five months; after the Wall fell she learned from her Stasi files that her husband had been an informer.
22 January 1973
15-month-old Holger H. suffocates during his parents' escape
A young couple hid with their baby son in crates on a West Berlin acquaintance's truck. They passed the Drewitz checkpoint undetected, but when the crates were opened in the West, 15-month-old Holger was no longer breathing.
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.
15 December 1973
Four East Berliners in the cabinets of a US soldiers' VW bus
On 15 December 1973 a doctor, his wife, their small child and another woman crossed Checkpoint Charlie hidden in cabinets inside a Volkswagen bus with US Army number plates. The East German guards missed them; US military police found them on the western side.
9 March 1975
A family of three in the boot of a West Berlin car at Drewitz
Three members of one family lay hidden in the boot of a car with West Berlin plates. At the Drewitz crossing the Stasi found them, arrested them and then made them climb back in so the scene could be photographed.
30 May 1975
A doctor's family in the boot of a US sergeant's Cadillac
On the evening of 30 May 1975 a US Army staff sergeant drove an East German doctor, his wife and son through Checkpoint Charlie in the boot of his 1969 Cadillac. The East German guards apparently noticed nothing; US military police found the family and took the sergeant into custody on the western side.
July 1976
Marina Prüfer and her son in a car boot
In July 1976 Marina Prüfer, a building draughtswoman from Neuenhagen whose exit application had put her under Stasi surveillance, reached West Berlin with her four-year-old son in the boot of a West German car.
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.
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.
21 September 1977
Two brothers in the luggage hold of a French army tour bus
On 21 September 1977 two young East German brothers crawled into the unlocked luggage hold of a French military tour bus parked at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park, and rode in it to West Berlin.
7 October 1978
Eva Röser in the petrol-tank space of a Lotus Seven
A pregnant 27-year-old East Berliner was driven through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing by her West German boyfriend, hidden in the cavity left by the removed petrol tank of his Lotus Seven.
25 August 1979
The US ambassador's chauffeur smuggles his family out in the official car
Joerg Habermann, an East German driver assigned to the US ambassador in East Berlin, hid his wife and six-year-old daughter in the boot of the ambassador's car, drove them through Checkpoint Charlie, went back to work – and walked across to the West himself that evening.
8 March 1980
Hitch-hiking on the U8
An East Berlin U-Bahn signal mechanic led three relatives through a disused connecting tunnel to the West Berlin U8 line, stopped a western train with his signal lamp and asked for a lift.
28 June 1981 – 29 June 1981
An Erfurt dentist family in a US Army Ford – the six-hour stand-off at Drewitz
Two US soldiers picked up two dentists from Erfurt and their ten-year-old son on the transit motorway. At Drewitz the Soviet commander refused to let the car through; after more than four hours of negotiation the American commander agreed to a joint check of the car.
25 April 1982
Two dentists and their son in the boot of a US Army Volvo
Two American soldiers picked up a dentist couple from Cottbus and their four-year-old son at a transit car park and hid them in the boot. The GDR had noticed – and the Soviets held the car at Drewitz until the US military police opened the boot.
31 March 1983
Holger Bethke and Michael Becker slide over the Wall on a steel cable
Using a bow and arrow to shoot a line over the border strip, Holger Bethke and his friend Michael Becker rigged a steel cable and rode home-made pulleys over the Wall from Treptow.
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.
26 May 1989
Ultralight flight from Treptower Park to the Reichstag
Two brothers who had already fled flew ultralight aircraft from West Berlin to Treptower Park at dawn; one landed to pick up their youngest brother Egbert, and both aircraft came down in front of the Reichstag.
18 August 1989
Hans-Peter and Peggy Spitzner in an American's car boot through Checkpoint Charlie
In August 1989 a teacher from Chemnitz and his seven-year-old daughter crossed Checkpoint Charlie hidden in the car boot of a young American, Eric Yaw. A Saxon memorial foundation calls them the last known Wall refugees.