Themes · Means and ruses
Armoured and heavy vehicles
Escapes and attempts with armoured cars, tanks, bulldozers, cranes and tractors.
9 events: 7 successful escapes and 2 failed attempts. At least 25 people reached the West in these events. The records span 1961–1966. Methods: driving through 7, guards who fled 2.
Often together with: Shots fired (6), Wounded and injured (3), Children and families (2)
3 October 1961
A Tatra crane lorry breaks through at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Just before the checkpoint a building firm's crane lorry swung into Dresdner Straße, crashed through the border wall between two new blocks and raced into Kreuzberg under machine-pistol fire.
14 November 1961
Armoured pre-war Opel at Chausseestraße
Five East Berliners drove an armoured pre-war Opel P4 through the Chausseestraße crossing under heavy fire and reached West Berlin unhurt.
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.
17 April 1963
Wolfgang Engels' armoured personnel carrier
A 19-year-old civilian army employee drove a stolen Soviet-built armoured personnel carrier into the Wall and was shot while climbing over, but was pulled into the West.
12 May 1963
Failed bus escape at Invalidenstraße
Eight young East Berliners tried to ram a stolen, steel-plated bus through the Invalidenstraße crossing; it was riddled with bullets and stopped one metre short of the West.
4 July 1963
A gunner steals a loaded T-34 tank to break through to West Berlin
Left unsupervised in his barracks, an NVA tank gunner took the keys to the tank hall, loaded the machine guns of a T-34/85, picked up a friend and drove off towards Güterfelde – until an officer jumped onto the moving tank.
9 September 1963
Two border policemen escape from their bulldozer in Falkensee
Two GDR border policemen, aged 20 and 23, who had been levelling the death strip at Falkensee drove their bulldozer up to the barriers, climbed the fences and reached West Berlin unnoticed.
18 October 1963
Border policeman crashes a crawler tractor through the wire
A 22-year-old border policeman assigned to levelling work broke through the wire barriers between Wilhelmsruh and Reinickendorf with a crawler tractor; when it stuck halfway, he continued to the West on foot.
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.