Themes · Along the border
Patrol boats
Records involving the boats that patrolled the border waters, on both sides.
12 events: 8 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape, 2 failed attempts and 1 fatal attempt. At least 18 people reached the West in these events. The records span 1961–1989. Methods: swimming 8, guards who fled 2, by boat 2.
Often together with: Shots fired (3), Night, fog and ice (2), Wounded and injured (2)
August 1961
A border policeman steals patrol boat G-65 on the Havel
When the boatman left the boat for a short time, a soldier of the Groß Glienicke border unit deserted in the patrol boat G-65, taking a carbine, a machine pistol and a flare pistol with him.
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.
23 August 1961
Horst P. and Wolfgang R. are caught swimming at the Treptower Brücke
Before 4.20 a.m. on 23 August 1961 two men born in 1940 were found swimming in the water at the Treptower Brücke, trying to get to West Berlin, and were arrested.
20 November 1961
Swimmers under fire at the Schillingbrücke reach the West Berlin bank
Shortly before 1 a.m. on 20 November 1961 the Spree was swum under fire at the Schillingbrücke. A Stasi report speaks of one man, injured by shots from the water police boat 'Toni 132'; the West Berlin police recorded three men who reached West Berlin, one of them wounded, and the fire brigade took them to hospital.
15 December 1962
Pulled out of the Spree 15 metres from the line
Before dawn on 15 December 1962 border guards on a patrol boat fired about 25 shots at a man of about 45 who was swimming the Spree. They pulled him into the boat 15 metres short of the sector border, and he shouted to West Berlin police that he was wounded.
1 January 1963
Hans Räwel – New Year's morning in the icy Spree
After a New Year's Eve party, baker Hans Räwel, born 1941, swam into the freezing Spree and was shot at close range from a border boat about 35 metres from the western bank.
29 October 1968
The boat commander who went ashore at the fairy-tale garden
On a patrol along the Havel at Sacrow, a boat commander asked to land to relieve himself – right where the land border met the water – went ashore and did not come back.
1 December 1971
Two border guards take a patrol boat across the Spree
In December 1971 two 20-year-old GDR border guards disarmed a comrade, took the patrol boat moored at Mühlenstraße and crossed the Spree to Kreuzberg in broad daylight.
19 September 1985
A water police officer sails his patrol boat to the West
In September 1985 a GDR water police officer slipped away from his colleagues, boarded his service boat, faked a routine patrol and motored across the water border to West Berlin.
21 August 1988
Four swim the Spree by the Reichstag as West Berliners watch
Four East Germans fled through the Spree near the Reichstag in front of many West Berlin onlookers; the crew of the pursuing border patrol boat did not open fire and all four reached the West unhurt.
2 September 1988
Two men swim the Havel with a patrol boat behind them
In the early hours of 2 September 1988 two men swam across the Havel in the north of Berlin and reached West Berlin unhurt, although a GDR border patrol boat chased them.
14 February 1989
Martin Notev is dragged back out of the Spree at the West Berlin bank
Martin Notev and two young neighbours smashed through the barriers with a truck and jumped into the Spree near the Reichstag. The neighbours escaped; Notev was pulled back by the hair from the West Berlin quay wall by a GDR patrol boat crew.
