Themes · People
Couples and sweethearts
Escapes by couples, and by people trying to reach a partner, fiancé or fiancée on the other side.
21 events: 15 successful escapes, 3 failed attempts and 3 fatal attempts. At least 23 people reached the West in these events. The records span 1961–1989. Most used methods: over the wall 5, swimming 4, hidden in vehicles 4.
Often together with: Shots fired (5), Escape helpers (4), Betrayed by informers (2), Homemade equipment (2), Plans abandoned or discovered (2), Stasi and secret services (2)
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.
15 August 1961
Married couple swims the Britz canal under police fire
On 15 August 1961 East German police fired at a married couple swimming across the 'Britz Canal'; both escaped the bullets and reached the West Berlin bank exhausted.
15 August 1961
Erika Schallert walks across Bernauer Straße with her wedding-dress fabric
Two days after the border was closed, a student whose fiancé lived in West Berlin talked her way past men outside a house on Bernauer Straße by pointing to the fabric for her wedding dress, then walked across the street into West Berlin while helpers distracted them.
20 August 1961
A married couple climbs out at the Wolliner Straße corner
At about 11 a.m. on 20 August 1961 a married couple escaped through the windows of their flat at the corner of Bernauer Straße and Wolliner Straße.
26 August 1961
A man and a woman swim the Teltow Canal near the Späthbrücke
At about 4.30 p.m. on 26 August 1961 a woman and a man swam across the Teltow Canal near the Späthbrücke into West Berlin.
September 1961
Ingrid crosses at Friedrichstraße on her fiancé's sister's US passport
In late September 1961 a graduate student in West Berlin walked his East Berlin fiancée, her hair dyed to match the photo, through the Friedrichstraße/Zimmerstraße crossing on his sister's US passport.
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.
19 December 1961
The Pankow Cemetery Tunnel
A young East Berlin bride, separated from her West Berlin husband by the Wall, crawled to freedom through a short tunnel whose entrance was hidden behind a gravestone.
March 1962
Annemarie Salzmann crawls through the wire at the Heidekrautbahn embankment
Dressed in overalls and leather gloves, a young trainee kindergarten teacher and her boyfriend crawled across a foggy field in Rosenthal and pulled each other through the barbed wire on the old Heidekrautbahn embankment.
9 April 1962
A cement lorry through the wall in Boyenstraße
On 9 April 1962 a lorry loaded with cement broke through the wall in Boyenstraße. It got stuck with most of it still on the eastern side, but the two men on board ran into West Berlin unhurt.
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.
11 December 1964
Hidden in the airport bus's spare-wheel box
The driver of the Interflug shuttle bus to West Berlin simply did not come back one morning; his girlfriend rode with him through the Invalidenstraße checkpoint inside the spare-wheel box.
January 1965
Through a cut grille between the S-Bahn platforms
A young West Berliner who had fled himself the year before cut a grille beneath the glass wall between the S-Bahn platforms at Friedrichstraße so that his girlfriend could slip through.
4 March 1965
Christian Buttkus – a snowstorm escape at Kleinmachnow
After abandoning plans to dive through the Teltow Canal, Christian Buttkus and his fiancée Ilse P. tried to cross at Kleinmachnow in a snowstorm; he was killed at the last fence and she was wounded and jailed.
26 December 1967
A rope over the Wall at Korsörer Straße – held by West Berlin policemen
An East Berlin woman's West German boyfriend threw a rope over the Wall in the night of 25/26 December while two West Berlin policemen held it; she was trying to pull herself up when the guards opened fire.
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.
1 February 1975
The Swiss embassy cook's Mini: caught at Bornholmer Straße
A young Swiss cook at the Swiss embassy in East Berlin had already taken his East Berlin girlfriend to the Kurfürstendamm and back in the boot of his Mini. On 1 February 1975, after two Stasi informers had reported on him, the boot was opened at Bornholmer Straße.
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.
July 1979
Kerstin Land and her partner in a car boot
In July 1979 Kerstin Land, a Leipzig student watched by the Stasi after a leaflet action over Wolf Biermann's expatriation, reached West Berlin with her partner in the boot of a West German car.
22 April 1982
The Abandoned Sigridshorst Tunnel
A train driver and his wife dug 17 metres of tunnel from their cellar but gave up with the border still several hundred metres away; a later balloon plan was betrayed and both were imprisoned.
26 January 1989
A bricklayer scrambles over the Wall from Pankow to Wedding – seen, but not shot at
Early on 26 January 1989 a 23-year-old East German bricklayer scrambled over the Wall from Pankow into Wedding. Border guards saw him but did not open fire.