1970
The barriers built in Berlin up to 1970 are said to have cost 100 million GDR marks, the Chronik der Mauer writes, not counting the men and equipment that guarded them.1 On 19 March Willy Brandt and Willi Stoph met in Erfurt, and a week later the four powers opened talks on Berlin in the former Allied Control Council building in West Berlin.2 On 27 November Egon Bahr and Michael Kohl began the negotiations that led to the Transit Agreement; in November and December the GDR again obstructed transit traffic in response to Bundestag party meetings held in West Berlin.3
Every 1970 record collected here failed or ended in death: an 85-metre tunnel from Bernauer Straße 80 that the Stasi dug out in May, the conscript Willi Born, who died in the woods at Bergfelde in July, and Christian Peter Friese, shot at Köllnische Heide on Christmas night.
Sources for this text
- FAQs – 36 Fragen und AntwortenChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1970: MärzChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1970: NovemberChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
7 events: 3 failed attempts and 4 fatal attempts.
10 March 1970
Christel and Eckhard Wehage's attempted hijacking of an Interflug plane
A young couple tried to force an Interflug An-24 on a domestic flight to fly to Hanover. The crew secretly turned back to Schönefeld; as the plane landed, Christel and Eckhard Wehage took their own lives.
21 March 1970
A 22-year-old is shot in the leg at Strelitzer Straße
A young man got almost to the foot of the Wall before the Strelitzer Straße watchtower spotted him; two aimed shots stopped him, one hitting his right leg.
5 April 1970
A man stopped at the last obstacle before the Wall, 5 April 1970
On 5 April 1970 an East German motorised patrol stopped a man trying to escape over the Wall into West Berlin as he reached the last steel obstacle; the guards beat him with their rifles, West Berlin police reported.
May 1970
The 85-metre tunnel from Bernauer Straße 80, dug out by the Stasi
Eight years after a 1962 tunnel attempt from Bernauer Straße 82, a new tunnel was begun at Bernauer Straße 80; after a tip-off and listening probes the Stasi exposed it by cross-trenching in May 1970, when it was already 85 metres long.
7 July 1970
Willi Born – a young soldier's flight ends in the Bergfelde woods
Nineteen-year-old conscript Willi Born left his unit and tried to reach West Berlin near Bergfelde; when border soldiers cornered him in a strip of woodland he took his own life.
14 November 1970 – 17 November 1970
Hans-Joachim Zock – a planned swim across the Spree
After years of Stasi suspicion, Hans-Joachim Zock travelled from Halle to East Berlin in November 1970 intending to swim the Spree to the West; he drowned, and his body was found weeks later.
25 December 1970
Christian Peter Friese shot on Christmas night at Köllnische Heide
On Christmas Eve 1970 a 22-year-old mechanic from Naumburg travelled to East Berlin and, around midnight, entered the border strip at Johannisthal. Five guards fired 98 shots; he died a few metres short of the last fence.
