1966
25 events: 11 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape, 7 failed attempts and 6 fatal attempts. At least 23 people reached the West in these events.
1 January 1966
A weapons NCO and his fiancée cross at Staaken despite 139 rounds
On the evening of 1 January 1966 an NVA weapons NCO of the 34th Border Regiment and his fiancée crossed the border at Staaken into West Berlin. Guards fired 139 rounds without stopping them; eight or nine bullets hit three residential buildings in West Berlin, the Stasi reported.
15 January 1966
Gerd L. turns back under warning shots and hides at Brunnenstraße 141
A local resident reached the border strip, then under construction; warning shots turned him back and he was arrested on the top floor of Brunnenstraße 141.
28 January 1966
80 shots at Manfred B.
After a marital row, Manfred B. climbed two fences; the Kremmener Straße sentries fired 80 rounds and arrested him. West Berlin answered with a poster addressed to the soldiers.
7 February 1966
Willi Block – trapped in the wire and shot at Staaken
Caught in a roll of barbed wire in full view of West Berlin police, former border policeman Willi Block was shot dead after a stand-off; the regimental commander himself fired.
12 February 1966
A soldier rides a freight train into West Berlin and is marched back
A border soldier escorting a freight train through the Treptower Weichengestell stayed on board and was 80 to 100 metres inside West Berlin when the train stopped; his post leader followed him on foot and marched him back at gunpoint.
28 February 1966
A young man swims the Teltow Canal near the Massantebrücke under fire
On the morning of 28 February 1966 a 22-year-old swam the Teltow Canal near the Massantebrücke in Rudow and reached West Berlin under fire from GDR border guards.
14 March 1966
Children Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener shot in Treptow
Ten-year-old Jörg Hartmann and 13-year-old Lothar Schleusener slipped into the border strip in Treptow after dark and were shot by border guards; the regime told their families false stories about how they had died.
19 March 1966
Two NCOs run for the border at Kohlhasenbrück – one gets through
NVA NCOs Willi Marzahn and Eberhard M. took weapons from their barracks and ran through the death strip near Steinstücken; in a firefight Eberhard M. reached West Berlin, while Marzahn died of a head wound.
23 March 1966
"Now there are two fewer of you!"
Two conscripts on duty at Eberswalder Straße broke open a door in the sight screen, climbed onto the freight-yard wall and jumped into the West; their comrades only noticed when a West Berlin policeman shouted across.
30 March 1966
Eberhard Schulz shot after standing up to surrender
Farm worker Eberhard Schulz, 20, and his friend Dieter K. had already given up when three guards found them; Schulz rose from the grass and was shot in the face and neck.
22 April 1966
Two guards climb the barrier at the Puschkinallee with a bench
Two soldiers of Border Regiment 37 on duty at the Puschkinallee in Treptow climbed the barrier into West Berlin with a bench from the grounds of the VEB OLW Treptow, taking their submachine guns; the line of their post's speaking set was found cut.
25 April 1966
Michael Kollender – a soldier's flight from guard duty
Conscript Michael Kollender left his sentry post in uniform and ran for the Teltow Canal; four guards fired 109 rounds and he was hit a few metres from the border; he died in the People's Police hospital.
19 May 1966
Peter St. escapes on his birthday, losing his wallet
On his birthday Peter St. crawled from the Sophien cemetery across the border strip; a signal device failed and he got through, leaving behind a wallet containing his call-up papers.
26 July 1966
Eduard Wroblewski – 274 shots at Mahlow
Family man Eduard Wroblewski was hit twelve times from behind in the barbed wire beside the old Mahlow–Lichtenrade railway, in one of the heaviest shootings at the Wall.
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.
3 September 1966
An escaper gets over under 171 shots at the Jahn-Sportpark
A man ran from the Jahn-Sportpark across the border strip under 171 shots and got into West Berlin. The Stasi identified him as a Humboldt University student who had knocked down a Stasi officer in his flat that evening, and said West Berlin police fired at the guards.
7 September 1966
Klaus N. escapes his pursuers but is arrested in Brunnenstraße
Fired on after climbing the rear fence at Schönholzer Straße, Klaus N. hid behind the tank traps, slipped back to East Berlin, and was arrested by a policeman who had watched from his flat.
9 September 1966
A Syrian consul's Mercedes, stopped with a couple in the boot
The Stasi stopped the white Mercedes of the Syrian consulate general in the Friedrichstraße and found a couple from Lauchhammer in the boot. By its own count the consul and a colleague had driven 64 East Germans to West Berlin in two consulate cars since March 1966.
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.
14 October 1966
A border-boat sailor deserts with three friends from Staßfurt at the Jungfernsee
On the evening of 14 October 1966 a sailor of the NVA boat company of Border Regiment 48 deserted to West Berlin while on leave in town, taking three young men from his home town of Staßfurt with him. They broke through in the Neuer Garten in Potsdam, on the shore of the Jungfernsee.
24 October 1966
An NCO rams the Checkpoint Charlie barrier in a bakery van
An NVA Unteroffizier on weekend leave stole a bakery delivery van in the Mauerstraße and rammed the first barrier at Checkpoint Charlie; the van skidded, a passport controller fired at it and he was arrested.
29 October 1966
Siegfried J. sets off an alarm and gives up at Bergstraße
A man who had moved from West to East Berlin only in 1965 climbed the cemetery wall at Bergstraße, triggered a signal device, turned back and was caught hiding in a school yard.
November 1966
Michael Schwerk pulls the S-Bahn emergency brake
In November 1966 Michael Schwerk, a conscript in the Bereitschaftspolizei, stopped an S-Bahn train near the border by pulling the emergency brake and fled across the tracks, a disused railway shaft 4.80 m deep and two barbed-wire fences into West Berlin.
15 December 1966
The two-man crew of a watchtower crosses into Zehlendorf
On the morning of 15 December 1966 two GDR border soldiers, the crew of a watchtower, crossed the border into Zehlendorf with their weapons, unnoticed.
16 December 1966
Karl-Heinz Kube shot near the Teltow harbour
Seventeen-year-old Karl-Heinz Kube and his friend Detlev S. were one fence from West Berlin when they were fired on; Kube was killed in the ditch where they sought cover.
