1968
The West Berlin police's survey of the border as of 31 July 1989 also gives figures for 1968: 200 dog runs, 85 kilometres of anti-vehicle ditches, 77.2 kilometres of signal fence and 83.5 kilometres of patrol road. By 1989 the counts were 259 dog runs, 105.5, 127.5 and 124.3 kilometres.1 From 11 June the GDR required passports and visas for travel and transit between the Federal Republic and West Berlin, and on 1 July a new criminal code came into force whose § 213 covered "unlawful border crossing".23
The 1968 records here include deaths in the strip and the water: Elke and Dieter Weckeiser opposite the Reichstag in February, Bernd Lehmann in the Spree in May, and the deserting policeman and the border soldier who died at Klein Glienicke in November. The successes came with ladders and desertions: a folding ladder at Schönholzer Straße on 27 October and, two days later, a deputy company commander at Stolpe-Süd and a boat commander at Sacrow.
Sources for this text
- Die Berliner Mauer (Stand 31. Juli 1989)Chronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1968: JuniChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1968: JuliChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
8 events: 3 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape, 1 failed attempt and 3 fatal attempts. At least 8 people reached the West in these events.
18 February 1968 – 19 February 1968
Elke and Dieter Weckeiser shot opposite the Reichstag
A young married couple from Fürstenwalde were fired on from a watchtower as they crawled through the first barbed wire opposite the Reichstag; both died of their wounds.
28 May 1968
Bernd Lehmann – caught in underwater barbed wire
Eighteen-year-old Bernd Lehmann entered the Spree near Treptower Park, apparently heading for the Flutgraben, but became entangled in barbed wire strung under the water and drowned.
7 July 1968
Bernd B. is shot five metres from the Wall
Crawling in the shelter of the Reconciliation Church, Bernd B. got within five metres of the Wall before a guard fired a warning shot and then shot him as he tried to jump up.
20 October 1968
110 bottles of hydrogen and a plastic balloon – then two families climb the fence at Groß Glienicke
Two families from Premnitz ordered 110 bottles of hydrogen to fill home-made plastic balloons. When the balloons would not inflate, they crossed the fences in thick fog: five made it, and the father of one family was shot and caught at the last fence.
27 October 1968
The guards couldn't open their window: folding-ladder escape at Schönholzer Straße
At 1 a.m. a man with a folding ladder crossed every barrier; by the time the Ruppiner Straße tower crew had smashed the window they could not open and fired, he was in the West.
29 October 1968
After a night of drinking, a deputy company commander climbs out with a painter's ladder
Facing a dressing-down for a drunken farewell party, the deputy commander and party secretary of a border company crawled through the compound fence, took a painter's ladder from a house and climbed into West Berlin in uniform with his pistol.
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.
15 November 1968
Deserting policeman and border soldier die near Klein Glienicke
A 21-year-old Volkspolizist deserting towards West Berlin opened fire on a border patrol vehicle in Babelsberg Park, killing driver Rolf Henniger, and was himself shot dead by the patrol leader.
