1971
From 1971 the Berlin Wall was guarded by the Grenzkommando Mitte of the border troops, 11,500 men strong; in the city centre the posts stood about 320 metres apart by day and 260 metres by night.1 On 25 February, the Chronik der Mauer says, the border troops found a tunnel dug from West Berlin at Bernauer Straße and Brunnenstraße, already 120 metres long, a day before it was to be finished.2 Press accounts of Tunnel 71 put the diggers about ten metres short of their goal. In the Four Power Agreement of 3 September the Soviet Union guaranteed unhindered transit between the Federal Republic and West Berlin for the first time since 1945; the Transit Agreement of 17 December and the Senate's agreement of 20 December, which gave West Berliners 30 days a year of visits in the East, followed.34
Among the 1971 records: a town councillor and his family over the Klein Glienicke wall with a fruit ladder in June, two guards who took a patrol boat across the Spree in December, and Horst Kullack, shot at Großziethen on New Year's Eve.
Sources for this text
- FAQs – 36 Fragen und AntwortenChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1971: FebruarChronik der Mauer
- Vier-Mächte-Abkommen (LeMO)Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
- Transitabkommen (LeMO)Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
14 events: 5 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape, 6 failed attempts and 2 fatal attempts. At least 15 people reached the West in these events.
7 January 1971
Rolf-Dieter Kabelitz – shot in the snow at Bergfelde
A 19-year-old from Potsdam set off a border alarm at Bergfelde on a snowy January night in 1971, turned back when tracking dogs were set on him, and was shot while hiding behind a tree. He died of his wounds 23 days later under Stasi guard in hospital.
February 1971
Tunnel 71 – The Last Tunnel under Bernauer Straße
Hasso Herschel's team lived underground for nine weeks digging a tunnel beneath Bernauer Straße, but came within ten metres of their goal before GDR border troops dug it up.
22 February 1971
75 shots miss – and the escaper is caught in a hallway on Provinzstraße
A bricklayer got through every barrier to within three metres of the Wall at Schönholz. Guards fired 75 rounds without hitting him; he turned back and was caught by police in a hallway.
4 April 1971
Two youths climb the Wall
On 4 April 1971 two East German youths climbed the Berlin Wall and fled to the West, West Berlin police reported.
15 June 1971
A councillor, his wife and two small sons climb the Wall at Klein Glienicke with a fruit ladder
On the night the SED's VIII Party Congress opened, an NDPD town councillor and trainee editor, his wife and their sons aged two and a half years and six months climbed the Klein Glienicke wall with a neighbour's fruit ladder in pouring rain.
4 July 1971
An off-duty lieutenant climbs out at Stolpe-Süd
A platoon leader of the border troops, born in 1946, went home after a dance, then climbed the Wall in the Stolpe-Süd section, where he lived, with a wooden ladder while guards fired 20 shots.
23 July 1971
Shots stop an escape at Brunnenstraße
At about 3.20 a.m. on 23 July 1971 border guards fired on a man trying to escape at Brunnenstraße and arrested him.
24 July 1971
A Danish tour guide, a doctored passport and a 16-year-old from Rostock
A Copenhagen tour guide tried to take a 16-year-old from Rostock through the Friedrichstraße crossing on a doctored Danish passport and was caught in the act.
22 August 1971
Three Leipzig youths over the fence at Kleinmachnow
Four friends from Leipzig cut their way through the signal fence at Kleinmachnow; three climbed the expanded-metal fence in their socks and reached West Berlin, the fourth was caught.
9 September 1971
A circus hand runs for the Wall near the Sonnenallee crossing
After an evening in the pubs of Baumschulenweg, a circus worker climbed the hinterland fence off the Heidekampweg; guards fired 43 rounds and wounded him in the hip and knees.
21 September 1971 – 22 September 1971
Three East Germans slip across unnoticed
In the night of 21 to 22 September 1971 three East Germans crossed the fortified border into West Berlin without being noticed.
26 September 1971
Man shot halfway across the Wall; bullets hit a West Berlin house
Early on 26 September 1971 guards shot and apparently wounded a man of about 30 whom they caught halfway across the Wall in the American sector; some bullets hit a house on the West Berlin side.
1 December 1971
Two border guards take a patrol boat across the Spree
In December 1971 two 20-year-old GDR border guards disarmed a comrade, took the patrol boat moored at Mühlenstraße and crossed the Spree to Kreuzberg in broad daylight.
31 December 1971
Horst Kullack shot on New Year's Eve at Großziethen
On New Year's Eve 1971 Horst Kullack climbed the rear fence at Großziethen and reached the border wall before guards shot him without warning. He died of his wounds three weeks later.
