1962
On 24 January 28 men, women and children crawled to Frohnau through a tunnel dug from a family's cellar in Glienicke/Nordbahn (the Becker tunnel), and in May twelve people, most of them pensioners, escaped through a 32-metre tunnel they had dug from a chicken shed on the same road (the pensioners' tunnel).12 Tunnels run through the year's records: the Heidelberger Straße tunnel in March, the betrayed Kiefholzstraße tunnel in August and, on 14 and 15 September, Tunnel 29, 120 metres from Bernauer Straße 78/79 to Schönholzer Straße 7, through which 29 people escaped.3
The guards changed too. In April the first conscripts, called up under the conscription law of 24 January 1962, joined the border troops; in August the Berlin border units were placed under the Ministry of National Defence and trained as soldiers.45 On 23 November Order 101/62 demanded shooting training so that every border soldier could "destroy any stationary or moving target with the first shot (burst), by day and by night" (translated).6
On 17 August Peter Fechter, an 18-year-old building worker, was shot at the Wall and bled to death in the border strip; nobody on either side helped him, and West Berliners demonstrated and rioted for days.7 On 24 September the Federal government bought the first 20 prisoners and 20 children free, for three railway wagons of fertiliser.3 The year ended with a vehicle: on 26 December an armoured bus with a snowplough broke through the Drewitz checkpoint with eight people aboard.8
Sources for this text
- Chronik 1962: JanuarChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: MaiChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: SeptemberChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: AprilChronik der Mauer
- Das GrenzsystemChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: NovemberChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: AugustChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1962: DezemberChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
61 events: 24 successful escapes, 9 partly successful escapes, 15 failed attempts and 13 fatal attempts. At least 139 people reached the West in these events.
1962
A man works his way along the Flutgraben border building and jumps to the West
In 1962 a man worked his way along the ornamental brickwork of the VEB OLW workshop building on the Flutgraben and jumped across the border into West Berlin. The protruding brick courses were then knocked off.
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.
6 January 1962
A West Berliner scouting the sewer at the Gleimtunnel is fired on
At 00.15 on 6 January 1962 a 20-year-old West Berliner went into the sewer at the Gleimtunnel to explore escape routes for relatives. He set off an alarm in the sewer on the East Berlin side; East Berlin police (Vopo) then climbed in and fired two submachine-gun shots at him, which missed.
6 January 1962
A man is caught ten metres short of the wire east of Timmendorfer Weg
At 01.45 on 6 January 1962 a man of about 30 to 35 tried to escape from the Soviet sector east of Timmendorfer Weg in Rudow. Five border guards who noticed him fired submachine-gun bursts at him, and border guards arrested him about 10 m before the barbed wire.
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
A young woman is shot at and arrested by the fence on Nennhauser Damm
At about 08.30 on 26 January 1962 a woman of about 18 who was near the border fence on Nennhauser Damm in Staaken was arrested by a two-man border-police patrol. Before the arrest a border guard fired four or five submachine-gun shots at her; the West Berlin police thought she was probably hurt.
27 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 a border house, broke through a bricked-up attic window and let himself down on his sweep's rope.
6 February 1962
Two men get through north-east of the Sonnenallee crossing
At 18.50 on 6 February 1962 two men escaped to West Berlin in Neukölln, about 250 m north-east of the Sonnenallee crossing. Nine submachine-gun bursts fired by the border guards missed them.
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.
16 February 1962
A mother and her five-year-old jump from a balcony at Klein Glienicke
On 16 February 1962 a 25-year-old woman and her 5-year-old son jumped from the balcony of a house near the Böttcherberg cemetery into West Berlin. West Berlin police forced the border guards who were firing at them to take cover.
19 February 1962
Scraping out the joints 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 removed the firing pins from his two comrades' submachine guns and fled with three acquaintances to the West Berlin exclave of Steinstücken; there was an exchange of fire but nobody was hurt.
22 February 1962
The Franzke brothers' first tunnel in the Heidelberger Straße is betrayed
Boris and Eduard Franzke dug a tunnel of more than 20 metres under the Heidelberger Straße to bring out their relatives. The plan was betrayed, and the family members waiting in the East were arrested.
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.
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.
29 March 1962
Johannes M. offers a guard a thousand marks at Ruppiner Straße
Johannes M. tried to buy his and his girlfriend's way through the border; the guard agreed, then alerted his comrades.
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.
3 April 1962
A border guard is shot down 15 metres from the line at Dreilinden
On 3 April 1962 a GDR border guard tried to reach West Berlin at the Dreilinden control point. A comrade set his dog on him and shot him. Badly wounded, he lay 15 metres from the border until he was taken away.
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.
10 April 1962
A nine-year-old jumps from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44
On 10 April 1962 a nine-year-old schoolboy jumped from the roof of Bernauer Straße 44 into the West Berlin fire brigade's jumping sheet. Border guards stopped a second child of the same age.
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.
May 1962
Dieter T. and four friends fail at Ackerstraße 43
An 18-year-old who had fled once in 1961 and come back tried again with four friends from the house at Ackerstraße 43 in May 1962, and failed.
May 1962
Reinhard Spiller drives his parents out on a forged diplomatic pass
In 1962 the engineering student Reinhard Spiller, who had got to West Berlin himself two days after the Wall went up, drove his parents out through Checkpoint Charlie using a fellow student's Austrian passport and a forged diplomatic pass, then helped about 50 more people out the same way.
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.
1 June 1962
Two girls try to help a friend escape at Lichterfelde-Süd
On 1 June 1962 a 16-year-old West Berlin girl was shot in the pelvis at the border in Lichterfelde-Süd while she and a 17-year-old friend were trying to help an acquaintance escape. The border guards arrested the friend.
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)
In June 1962 helpers around Harry Seidel dug from the cellar of a Neukölln corner pub under Heidelberger Straße and, over the Whitsun weekend, 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; West Berlin police said he had been 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.
22 June 1962
A fugitive collapses under fire at the Forsthausallee bridge
At about 04.40 on 22 June 1962 a border guard fired a submachine-gun burst at a fleeing man at the Forsthausallee bridge. The man collapsed and about 15 minutes later was carried away in a tent sheet by the East Berlin fire brigade, apparently lifeless.
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.
19 July 1962
A West Berliner cutting the wire for his wife is fired on near Rosenthal cemetery
At about 21.35 on 19 July 1962 a West Berliner tried to cut through the barbed wire near the Städtischer Friedhof Rosenthal so that his wife, who lived in East Berlin, could escape. Border guards fired about 30 submachine-gun rounds; he got away unhurt.
25 July 1962
One of three gets through at Karpfenteichstraße
According to a man who reached West Berlin in the early hours of 25 July 1962, he and two others had been spotted and fired on by border guards near Karpfenteichstraße in Treptow; the other two, one of them wounded, were arrested.
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 jumped into the Spree; a border guard 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.
19 November 1962
He gets through, she is shot in the arm
At 3.40 on 19 November 1962 border guards at Baumschulenweg fired about 30 shots at two people trying to escape. The man reached West Berlin unhurt. The woman, probably hit in the arm, was arrested.
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.
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.
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.
27 December 1962
Circus artiste Horst Klein on the high-voltage line
A circus artiste tried to cross the Teltow Canal by climbing 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.
