Themes · Surveillance and aftermath
Prison, ransom and expulsion
Escapees and helpers who were imprisoned in the GDR, bought free by West Germany or expelled to the West.
20 events: 2 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape, 14 failed attempts and 3 fatal attempts. At least 2 people reached the West in these events. The records span 1961–1989. Most used methods: over the wall 5, driving through 4, hidden in vehicles 4.
Often together with: Escape helpers (7), Betrayed by informers (5), Shots fired (5), Wounded and injured (5), Witness accounts (3), Ladders (2)
10 September 1961
Policeman Gerd Sommerlatte flees at the Brandenburg Gate and is kidnapped back
Posted to the Brandenburg Gate after the border closed, an 18-year-old policeman fled across the wire with his weapon rather than risk having to shoot at people. Less than three weeks later the Stasi had him abducted back to East Berlin.
6 October 1961
Sewer escape helper Carl-August von Halle walks into a Stasi trap
A West Berlin architecture student who had helped East Germans escape through the sewers was lured into a trap by a Stasi informer and arrested at Friedrichstraße station.
1962
A 17-year-old is caught trying to cross through the grounds of the Villa Kampffmeyer
In 1962 the 17-year-old brother of a Potsdam resident tried to reach West Berlin across the grounds of the Villa Kampffmeyer near the Berliner Straße; he was caught and held in the Stasi remand prison in the Lindenstraße.
7 August 1962
The Betrayed Kiefholzstraße Tunnel
Several escape-helper groups joined forces on a tunnel to a small house on Kiefholzstraße for a planned mass escape, but a Stasi informer among the couriers betrayed it and dozens of would-be refugees were arrested.
14 November 1962
The Kleinmachnow Tunnel and the Arrest of Harry Seidel
The betrayal of a 70-metre tunnel into Kleinmachnow ended with the capture of the famous escape helper Harry Seidel, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in a show trial.
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.
January 1964
Jumping onto the Moscow–Paris Express behind Friedrichstraße
In January 1964 a group of young East Berliners jumped, alone or in pairs, from a hiding place just behind Friedrichstraße station onto the westbound Moscow–Paris Express. The route was discovered when Karl-Heinz Richter slipped, was badly hurt and was arrested.
10 November 1965 – 11 November 1965
Heinz Cyrus – hunted into Gartenstraße 85
Chased from the border strip by gunfire, Heinz Cyrus fled into a building on Gartenstraße, climbed out of a fourth-floor window and fell into the courtyard; he died the next morning.
25 November 1965
Heinz Sokolowski – shot at the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate
Former journalist and political prisoner Heinz Sokolowski, 47, had reached the Wall between the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate when a guard shot him in the abdomen.
26 August 1966 – 27 August 1966
Hartmut Richter swims the Teltow Canal
Eighteen-year-old Hartmut Richter spent about four hours in the Teltow Canal, swimming roughly a kilometre past the border defences to Dreilinden in West Berlin.
7 July 1969
The 'Trojan cow' at Drewitz
A 28-year-old woman from Karl-Marx-Stadt was hidden inside a hollow model bull in a wooden crate, but the hiding place was found at the Drewitz crossing.
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.
1 March 1973 – 5 March 1973
Volker Frommann jumps from a moving S-Bahn near the border
Shortly after midnight on 1 March 1973 Volker Frommann, born in 1944 in Thuringia, jumped out of a moving S-Bahn train about 50 metres from the border strip in Pankow, probably meaning to get through to West Berlin there. He died of his injuries four days later.
20 July 1973 – 21 July 1973
Klaus Gomert at the Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark – shot at, arrested, then expelled to the West
In the night of 19–20 July 1973 East Berlin border guards fired bursts at a person presumably trying to escape by the Ludwig-Jahn-Sportpark. On 21 July East Berlin police released 18-year-old Klaus Gomert to West Berlin, and ADN claimed he was the would-be escaper – Gomert contradicted parts of the East German account.
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.
4 March 1975
Escape helper Hartmut Richter caught at Drewitz with his sister in the boot
After smuggling 33 people out in the boot of his car, escape helper Hartmut Richter was stopped at the Drewitz crossing with his own sister and her fiancé hidden inside, and sentenced to 15 years.
27 September 1986
Lada crash at Chausseestraße
Two young East Berliners drove a Lada through the gate at Chausseestraße at 80 km/h but crashed into a barrier and were jailed for over four years.
24 January 1989
Thomas Drescher and his friend caught at the Wall in Glienicke
On the night of 24 January 1989 the carpenter Thomas Drescher and his friend Dirk set a ladder against the Wall at Glienicke/Nordbahn and climbed, but a dog barked, a searchlight caught them and three armed border guards surrounded them. He was sentenced to 15 months and ransomed by West Germany in October 1989.
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.
26 April 1989
Stolen truck stuck in the death strip at Glienicke
A 21-year-old steelworker broke through the inner wall with a stolen truck but got stuck in the sand of the death strip after hitting a lamp post.