Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

Year by year

1978

Since the mid-1970s, the Chronik der Mauer says, the fourth generation of the Wall had been going up: the Grenzmauer 75, of industrially made concrete elements 3.60 metres high and 1.20 metres wide.1 On 16 November Bonn and East Berlin signed a transport agreement covering a transit motorway between Berlin and Hamburg, the reopening of the Teltow Canal to shipping and new terms for the transit lump sum paid to the GDR.2 The West Berlin police registered 146 successful escapes through the Berlin barriers in the year to 13 August 1978.3

Among the 1978 records: two guards who, by a US Mission account, ran through the gate of the Fichtewiese exclave in June (an AP report says the first climbed the Wall); three students, two of them dressed as border guards, who climbed the Wall on folding ladders, an escape announced in July; LOT flight 165, forced down at Tempelhof on 30 August; and Eva Röser in the petrol-tank space of a Lotus Seven in October.

Sources for this text

  1. Das GrenzsystemChronik der Mauer
  2. Chronik 1978: NovemberChronik der Mauer
  3. Gelungene Fluchten aus der DDR und Ost-Berlin durch die Grenz-Sperranlagen, 1961-1989Chronik der Mauer

Checked October 2026. Facts taken from an escape record on this site link to that record, which lists its own sources.

6 events: 6 successful escapes. At least 12 people reached the West in these events.

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  1. 22 April 1978

    A 19-year-old reaches Staaken with a bullet wound in his hand

    In the early hours of 22 April 1978 a 19-year-old East German turned up at the S-Bahn station in Staaken with a gunshot wound in his hand. He told police he had been fired on as he crossed the border.

    Over the wall · Reached the West · Spandau (Staaken)

  2. June 1978

    Two East Germans escape in a Belgian diplomat's car

    In June 1978 two East Germans who had befriended a Belgian diplomat in East Berlin knocked him out, altered his identity papers and drove his diplomatic car into West Berlin.

    False papers and disguises · Reached the West · Mitte / Tiergarten

  3. 11 June 1978 – 17 June 1978

    Two guards in one week dart through the Fichtewiese gate

    West Berlin allotment holders reached their gardens in the Fichtewiese exclave through a gate in the Wall, with GDR guards checking their passes. On 11 and 17 June 1978 two of those guards simply ran through the door into the British sector.

    Guards who fled · Reached the West · Spandau (Hakenfelde)

  4. July 1978

    Three students disguised as a border patrol climb the Wall on folding ladders

    Three East German students got into the death strip in a car with military markings; the two men, disguised as border guards, climbed the Wall on folding ladders they had brought, and the woman had come in hidden in the back of the car.

    False papers and disguises · Reached the West · Berlin (exact place not given)

  5. 30 August 1978

    LOT Flight 165: East Germans divert a Polish airliner to Tempelhof

    When a plan to leave via Poland with forged papers fell through, two East Germans hijacked the LOT airliner flying from Gdańsk to East Berlin-Schönefeld and forced it down at Tempelhof in West Berlin.

    Aircraft and balloons · Reached the West · Tempelhof-Schöneberg

  6. 7 October 1978

    Eva Röser in the petrol-tank space of a Lotus Seven

    A pregnant 27-year-old East Berliner was driven through the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing by her West German boyfriend, hidden in the cavity left by the removed petrol tank of his Lotus Seven.

    Hidden in vehicles · Reached the West · Mitte → Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg