1976
On 1 April 1976, after a trial phase in 1975, building began on the fourth generation of the Wall: vertical, industrially made concrete elements topped with a slit asbestos pipe.1 On 23 March the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights had come into force in the GDR, with its sentence that everyone is free to leave any country, including his own.2 On 11 October Order 101/76 dropped the phrase that border violators were to be "destroyed" (translated); they were to be arrested, though firearms went on being used until 1989.3
The 1976 records here are mostly hidden passengers: the Zaire attaché's embassy car, exposed in April, Marina Prüfer and her son in a car boot in July, and the Mierendorff organisation's sealed van stopped at Staaken on 16 July. A painter's family cut through the fence at Klein Glienicke and climbed the Wall with a home-made ladder in August.
Sources for this text
- Chronik 1976: AprilChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1976: MärzChronik der Mauer
- Chronik 1976: OktoberChronik der Mauer
Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.
5 events: 2 successful escapes, 1 partly successful escape and 2 failed attempts. At least 13 people reached the West in these events.
4 February 1976
Look-alikes for hire: the Dawid organisation's couriers arrested in Potsdam
Three West Berliners went into the GDR as tourists. They were to hand their own identity papers, clothes and handbags to two East Germans, who would then leave through the Invalidenstraße crossing as their look-alikes. The Stasi arrested them in Potsdam.
10 April 1976
Refugees in the boot of an embassy car: the Zaire attaché and the ARAMCO network
An administrative attaché of Zaire's embassy in East Berlin used his diplomatic car to drive at least eight East Germans to West Berlin in the boot. The operation ended when his courier was arrested at the Friedrichstraße crossing.
July 1976
Marina Prüfer and her son in a car boot
In July 1976 Marina Prüfer, a building draughtswoman from Neuenhagen whose exit application had put her under Stasi surveillance, reached West Berlin with her four-year-old son in the boot of a West German car.
16 July 1976
Sealed van of the Mierendorff escape organisation stopped at Staaken
An escape helper from near Hamburg picked up a man, his wife and a drugged child on the transit motorway and hid them in a customs-sealed van with a manipulated seal fitting; followed by two Wartburgs, he was stopped at the Staaken crossing and the van was opened.
27 August 1976
A home-made ladder from the garden at Am Böttcherberg
A painter, his wife and their four-year-old child cut through the rear fence opposite their garden in the Klein Glienicke enclave and climbed the 3.5 m Wall with a ladder they had built themselves.
