1969
By the end of the 1960s or the start of the 1970s, the Chronik der Mauer says, a technically developed border system ran through Berlin: wall, patrol roads, lighting, electric fences, dog runs, vehicle barriers and alarm systems, which together became almost impossible to cross.1 The West Berlin police registered 46 successful escapes through them in the year to 13 August 1969, the same as the year before.2
Several 1969 records here ended in gunfire inside the strip: Johannes Lange, killed directly in front of the last wall on Adalbertstraße in April, Klaus-Jürgen Kluge, shot on the crest of the Wall, and Leo Lis in September, and the 35 rounds fired at two men in the Sophienfriedhof strip in October. The successes went round the barriers: according to a short New York Times report, a train driver and a conductor took an empty train to a West Berlin stop on May Day, and on 19 October two East Germans forced a Polish airliner to land at Tegel.3
Sources for this text
- Das GrenzsystemChronik der Mauer
- Gelungene Fluchten aus der DDR und Ost-Berlin durch die Grenz-Sperranlagen, 1961-1989Chronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1969: OktoberChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
10 events: 3 successful escapes, 4 failed attempts and 3 fatal attempts. At least 5 people reached the West in these events.
10 January 1969
A kick through the glass wall at Friedrichstraße
Shortly after midnight a man kicked in a glass panel of the partition at Friedrichstraße station and got into the hall where the trains to West Berlin left, but he was arrested on the next westbound train.
9 April 1969
Johannes Lange shot at the last wall on Adalbertstraße
Decorative painter Johannes Lange was killed just short of the final concrete wall on Adalbertstraße after eight border guards fired 148 rounds.
1 May 1969
May Day: a train driver and conductor take an empty train to the West
On 1 May 1969 an East German train driver and a woman conductor drove an empty train of Berlin's elevated railway to a West Berlin stop, got out and asked for political asylum.
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.
13 September 1969
Klaus-Jürgen Kluge shot on the crest of the Wall
Facing military service he loathed, Klaus-Jürgen Kluge tried to climb the Wall near the Bornholmer Straße crossing and was shot as he lay on its crest.
20 September 1969
Leo Lis shot near the Nordbahnhof
Leo Lis, a 45-year-old dairy worker from Saxony, had already crossed several barriers near the Nordbahnhof when border guards opened fire; he died of a chest wound.
19 October 1969
Two East Germans force a Polish airliner to land at Tegel
Two young East Germans forced the pilots of a Polish Ilyushin 18, flying from Warsaw to East Berlin, to land at Tegel in the French sector of West Berlin, where they asked for political asylum.
24 October 1969
35 shots at Karl-Heinz Br. and Gerd W. in the cemetery strip
Two men crawling across the control strip were spotted from the Ackerstraße watchtower; the guards fired 35 rounds, and both were arrested unhurt behind the vehicle barrier.
November 1969
Detlef Hubert Peuker over the Wall from a Bernauer Straße yard
In November 1969 the 16-year-old Detlef Hubert Peuker, who had scouted a building on Bernauer Straße during a visit to Berlin, got over the border installations from its yard into West Berlin.
24 November 1969
Two men shot trying to reach the American sector on one day
On 24 November 1969 East German guards shot two men in separate attempts to cross into West Berlin's American sector: a border guard trying to scale the Wall, and a youth fired on with a machine gun in the fortified strip.