1962
16 January 1962
Private Klaus Sch. switches off the lights and climbs over on a stool
When his squad leader went to the next post, Gefreiter Klaus Sch. turned off the border lighting and climbed the Wall using a stool.
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.
26 January 1962
The Collapsed Tunnel under Wollankstraße Station
Students tried to dig from the bricked-up arches beneath Wollankstraße S-Bahn station into East Berlin, but the tunnel collapsed under the platform and was discovered before anyone could escape.
29 January 1962
Fake chimney sweep abseils from Bernauer Straße 13
Dressed as a chimney sweep, a young man walked past the guards into an emptied border house, broke through a bricked-up attic window and let himself down on his sweep's rope.
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.
19 February 1962
Scraping out the mortar by candlelight at Bernauer Straße 46
Guards found a hole broken through a bricked-up first-floor window; a man had apparently scratched out the joints with nails by candlelight and jumped.
19 February 1962
Dorit Schmiel – five friends crawl towards Reinickendorf
Five young East Berliners cut through the fence in Rosenthal after midnight and crawled across the snowy border strip; guards opened fire without warning, killing 20-year-old seamstress Dorit Schmiel and wounding a 16-year-old.
21 February 1962
Rudi Thurow leads refugees to Steinstücken
Border policeman Rudi Thurow sabotaged his comrades' weapons and led a small group of civilians under fire into the West Berlin enclave of Steinstücken, from where they were flown out by US helicopter.
21 March 1962 – 27 March 1962
Heidelberger Straße Tunnel and the Death of Heinz Jercha
Dozens of East Berliners escaped through a tunnel under Heidelberger Straße until a Stasi informer betrayed it; escape helper Heinz Jercha was shot in an ambush and died after crawling back to the West.
April 1962
Philipp Held – a West German who could not get back
A 19-year-old from Worms who had moved to the GDR in 1961 tried to return to the West by swimming the Spree; his body was recovered on 22 April 1962.
18 April 1962
Deserting cadets' gunfight at Griebnitzsee
Two armed NVA officer cadets tried to desert to West Berlin across disused S-Bahn land at Griebnitzsee; in the exchange of fire border guard Jörgen Schmidtchen and cadet Peter Böhme were killed, while Wolfgang G. reached the West.
18 April 1962
Fatal truck breakthrough at Heinrich-Heine-Straße
Three young East Berliners crashed a truck through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing; they reached the West, but the driver, 23-year-old Klaus Brueske, died of his injuries.
29 April 1962
Horst Frank – caught in the last wire at Schönholz
Two friends from Saxony crawled for four hours across the border strip at the Schönholz allotments; Detlev W. reached West Berlin, while 19-year-old Horst Frank was spotted in the last barbed-wire fence and shot.
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.
27 May 1962
Lutz Haberlandt – shot at the Charité
On a warm Sunday a 24-year-old bricklayer climbed from the Charité hospital grounds into the border strip; a guard on the tower of the Supreme Court shot him in the head and he lay in the bushes for about 40 minutes.
5 June 1962
Axel Hannemann – from a cargo barge into the Spree
A 17-year-old apprentice from Cottbus jumped from the Marschallbrücke onto a westbound cargo barge; when the skipper stopped, he jumped into the Spree and was shot a few metres from the West Berlin bank.
8 June 1962
The excursion ship "Friedrich Wolf"
Young East Berliners commandeered the passenger steamer "Friedrich Wolf", locked up its crew and swerved under heavy fire into West Berlin's Landwehrkanal.
9 June 1962 – 11 June 1962
The Whitsun Tunnel (Pfingsttunnel)
Over the Whitsun weekend of 1962, helpers around Harry Seidel dug from the cellar of a Neukölln corner pub under Heidelberger Straße and brought East Berliners out through a photographer's shop.
10 June 1962
Helmut P. is shot at but gets over the cemetery wall
Helmut P. chose the Sophien cemetery for its cover; two guards at Ackerstraße fired as he pulled himself up the wall, but he got over, wounded.
11 June 1962
Erna Kelm – swimming belt under her clothes
On Whit Monday 1962 an angler found the body of 53-year-old Erna Kelm from Sacrow in the Havel; she wore a swimming belt under her clothes and had apparently tried to swim to West Berlin.
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.
2 July 1962
Truck driver Günter P. climbs the Wall on his first day at the site
On his first day on a guarded demolition site, a driver climbed the Wall while another truck blocked the guards' view.
1 August 1962
Conscript Jörg S. stages a check and escapes with two friends
A conscript on rear-guard duty waved two friends through, lured his squad leader into a back yard where one of them knocked him down with a spade, and the three ran for the Wall; a fourth friend gave up when shots were fired.
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.
17 August 1962
Peter Fechter bleeds to death at Zimmerstraße
18-year-old bricklayer Peter Fechter was shot while climbing the Wall on Zimmerstraße and left to die at its foot for about 50 minutes in full view of West Berliners; his companion escaped.
23 August 1962
Hans-Dieter Wesa shot at Bornholmer Straße station
Transport policeman Hans-Dieter Wesa, 19, climbed the border fence at the closed Bornholmer Straße S-Bahn station and was shot dead by his post partner after he had already reached West Berlin territory.
4 September 1962
Ernst Mundt shot on the Sophien cemetery wall
Ernst Mundt, 40, climbed onto the glass-topped wall of the Sophien cemetery on Bernauer Straße and was shot in the head by a transport police officer.
14 September 1962 – 15 September 1962
Tunnel 29
Around 30 helpers, mostly students, dug a tunnel from a factory on Bernauer Straße to a cellar in East Berlin; 29 people escaped through it over two days while an American TV crew filmed.
17 September 1962
West Berlin police open a cellar window for three young men
While a West Berlin officer held the guards' observation post at gunpoint, police broke open a walled-up cellar window and three young men climbed out.
6 October 1962
The Second Heidelberger Krug Tunnel to Elsenstraße
A second tunnel from the Heidelberger Krug pub brought a tailor couple to the West in their pyjamas, but an informer tipped off the Stasi within hours and an escape helper was shot and captured.
8 October 1962
Anton Walzer – shot swimming from a barge
Sixty-year-old Anton Walzer climbed onto a moored barge and slipped into the Spree; border guards shot him in the back of the head.
26 October 1962
Two young men swing over the Sophien cemetery wall under fire
Shortly before midnight two men in their early twenties used the cover of the cemetery to reach the Wall; guards at Ackerstraße 42 fired, but both got to West Berlin.
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.
19 November 1962
Horst Plischke – missing in the Havel for four months
A 23-year-old from Potsdam went into the Havel north of the Glienicke Bridge before dawn; guards spotted him and fired, and he drowned. His body surfaced four months later.
27 November 1962
Otfried Reck – the S-Bahn tunnel plan
Two friends tried to open a ventilation shaft to the North–South S-Bahn tunnel near the Nordbahnhof and stop a westbound train; discovered, they ran away and 17-year-old Otfried Reck was shot in the back.
5 December 1962 – 6 December 1962
Günter Wiedenhöft – through the ice of the Griebnitzsee
Days after being sentenced for a first escape attempt, a 20-year-old electrician tried again across the partly frozen Griebnitzsee; he broke through the ice and drowned.
27 December 1962
Circus artiste Horst Klein on the high-voltage line
A circus artiste tried to cross the Teltow Canal hand over hand along a high-voltage line, lost his strength and fell onto the eastern bank, from where West Berlin firemen fetched him in a rubber dinghy.