1986
17 January 1986
Telecom fitter runs through Checkpoint Charlie
A 21-year-old East Berlin telecommunications fitter, installing surveillance cameras at Checkpoint Charlie, used an unguarded moment to sprint through the control area to West Berlin.
20 January 1986
"Ladder of success" at Glienicke/Nordbahn
Shortly after midnight a man used a two-metre ladder to climb the rear wall at Glienicke/Nordbahn, set off the signal fence, ran the last 17 metres and used the same ladder to get over the final wall — the guards never saw him.
27 January 1986
Frank K. is caught at the signal fence
An applicant for an exit visa who worked near the border prepared tools and a change of trousers, got over the inner wall, and was arrested climbing the signal fence.
29 August 1986
Gravel truck through Checkpoint Charlie
Truck driver Hans-Joachim Pofahl, his partner and their eight-month-old baby smashed through Checkpoint Charlie in a truck loaded with five tonnes of gravel.
2 September 1986
Over the rear wall and across the Bösebrücke
A janitor and a construction helper climbed into the Bornholmer Straße checkpoint area with a ladder, got into the diplomats' lane and simply walked across the Bösebrücke — guards who saw them assumed they had been cleared.
3 September 1986
Sacrower See – one friend makes it, Rainer Liebeke drowns
Rainer Liebeke and his friend Dirk K. tried to swim about 500 metres across the Sacrower See; the friend reached West Berlin, but Liebeke, hampered by a broken collarbone, drowned.
24 September 1986
Three young men swim the Teltow Canal
Shortly after 2 a.m. three young men used a wooden ladder to scale the barriers in Teltow and swam the 40-metre-wide Teltow Canal to Zehlendorf, helped by a guard's lost magazine.
27 September 1986
Lada crash at Chausseestraße
Two young East Berliners drove a Lada through the gate at Chausseestraße at 80 km/h but crashed into a barrier and were jailed for over four years.
8 October 1986
A landscape architect dives through the Jungfernsee barrier
A 29-year-old landscape architect in a diving suit slipped through a corroded gap in the underwater barrier at Nedlitz and swam to West Berlin north of the Glienicker Brücke.
19 November 1986
Dieter H.'s folding-ladder escape under fire
A toolmaker who had been refused permission to emigrate and jailed for two years built a small collapsible ladder, cut through the signal fence at Brunnenstraße and got over the 3.6-metre Wall while twelve shots were fired at him.
21 November 1986
Manfred Mäder and René Gross – lifting-platform truck at Karpfenteichstraße
Two East Berliners who had applied to leave the GDR drove a stolen truck with a lifting platform through the rear border wall in Treptow. Border guards opened continuous fire and both men were killed.
24 November 1986
Michael Bittner shot at Glienicke/Nordbahn
The 25-year-old climbed the inner wall with a wooden ladder and was shot in the back as he reached the final wall; the Stasi then erased almost every trace of his death.
2 December 1986
One gets over, one is caught: Mahlow to Lichtenrade
Two workmates from Beelitz helped each other over the barriers at Mahlow-Waldblick; the 22-year-old made it over the three-metre Wall into Lichtenrade while his 18-year-old companion was arrested.
20 December 1986
Failed motorised hang-glider escape near Potsdam
A 37-year-old toolmaker took off in a home-built motorised hang glider towards West Berlin, but darkness, cold and disorientation forced him down in the GDR.