HEADS ON: A FAILED ESCAPE ATTEMPT TO WEST BERLIN
Today in Berlin: 15 August, 1989
In the summer and autumn of 1989, in the final months of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s division, at least 18 people lost their lives trying to flee across the border from the East to the West. Many other escape-attempts failed, ending up in arrests and imprisonment.
One of such unsuccessful undertakings played out on this day in 1989 at the border-crossing Heiligensee-Stolpe.
Shortly before midnight, an unnamed 28-year-old East German (possibly Berliner) worker tried to escape to West Berlin by ramming the border fortifications of the transit border-crossing Stolpe between Brandenburg and Berlin-Reinickendorf near Heiligensee. The crossing opened only two years earlier, when the new Autobahn Berlin-Hamburg had been completed. It became part of what was known as the Außenring: “The Outer Ring” or “the Orbital”.
The young man was sitting at the wheel of a heavy military lorry, model Moskau SIL 131, as he sped up towards the sedan-car passage. The massive vehicle smashed the turnpike, ploughed through several gates and fell onto a side. The driver was hurled out of the cabin by the force of the impact and lay wounded on the ground as the East German border guards rushed towards him.
The attempt failed. The driver’s fate is unknown.
Exactly 28 years earlier - on August 15, 1961 - 19-year-old DDR border guard, Conrad Schumann, became one of the first Berlin Wall defectors in history. Stationed that day on the corner of Ruppiner Straße and Bernauer Straße, he jumped over coils of barbed wire initially used as a deterrent, dropping his weapon. The legendary photo was made by Peter Leibing.
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If only that unknown 28 year old had known that the wall would come down a few months later!