Although the East German government fortified the barrier with everything from watchtower to guard blackguard to beds of nails , a few people managed to slip over the edge in amazing way .
1. On a Tightrope
East German acrobat Horst Klein made one of the most daring escapes over the bulwark in early 1963 . Thanks to his athletic skill , Klein was able-bodied to turn an unused mellow - tension cable that stretched over the wall into his road . He moved hand - over - helping hand while dangling from the line 60 human foot over the head of patrolling guards , then when his blazon became fatigued , he swing his whole organic structure up over the cable and inched his way along . Klein ’s dismount was n’t particularly graceful – he fell off of the cable system – but he landed in West Berlin .
2. Down a Zip Line
On March 31 , 1983 , friends Michael Becker and Holger Bethke took Klein ’s estimate one whole tone further by letting gravitational attraction do the heavy lifting for them . The pair climbed to the loft of a five - story building on the easterly side of the wall and fired an arrow tied to a thin fishing dividing line over a construction in West Berlin . An confederate catch the arrow and swag in the line , which was link to a slightly heavier fishing line , then to a quarter - inch steel cable . Once the steel cablegram was attached to a chimney on the western side of the rampart , Becker and Bethke zipper across the quarter - in cable using wooden pulley block .
3. Without a Windshield
When Austrian lathe hustler Heinz Meixner pull up to Checkpoint Charlie on May 5 , 1963 , something must have seemed odd about his red Austin Healey Sprite convertible . Namely , it was drop its windscreen . ( A closer inspection would also have revealed that his female parent was hide in the trunk . ) When the East German guard directed Meixner to pull over to a customs shed , Meixner or else floored the accelerator and ducked . His tiny car slipped right under the three - foot - high roadblock dividing the East from the West .
4. With a Passport from Hef
A 1986Los Angeles Timespiece by Gordon E. Rowley describe Meixner ’s drive escape , but it also detailed a definitely low - technical school method of crossing the margin . grant to Rowley , some border crossers simply approach the guards and dart their membership circuit card for Munich ’s Playboy Club . The cards so closely resembled diplomatical pass that the guard often waved them through .
5. On a Speeding Train
These clever escapes all work , but in the bulwark ’s early days , brute force was an selection , too . In December 1961 , a 27 - year - onetime train engine number one wood refer Harry Deterling piloted what he dub “ the last train to exemption ” across the border . or else of slowing down his rider power train as it approached the fortifications , Deterling throttled it up to full focal ratio and ripped through the wall .
The wagon train skidded to a stoppage in West Berlin ’s Spandau borough , leave Deterling , seven member of his family unit , and 16 other people aboard the train to remain in the West . The gear ’s engine driver and six other passenger chose to reelect to East Germany .
6. In a Hot Air Balloon
The escape orchestrated by Hans Strelczyk and Gunter Wetzel in 1979 sounds like it make out straight out of a risible book . Strelczyk , a automobile mechanic , and Wetzel , a mason , used their mechanical know - how to build a hot air travel balloon engine out of old propane cylinders . Their wife then set up together a makeshift balloon from scraps of canvass and old bed sheet , and on September 16 , 1979 , the two couples , along with their four children , float up to 8,000 feet and wander over the wall to freedom .
7. In a Well-Aged Tunnel
In May 1962 , a dozen masses escaped from the East by room of Der Seniorentunnel , otherwise know as “ the Senior Citizens ’ burrow . ” Led by an 81 - year - older world , a group of senior citizens had spend 16 days grasp a 160 - foot - farseeing and 6 - foot - tall tunnel from an East German chicken coop all the way to the other side of the bulwark . According to one of the digger , the burrow was so grandiloquent because the old man want “ to walk to exemption with our wives , comfortably and unbowed . ”
8. In a Uniform
Movies run to portray East German border guards as soulless zombi who were dead - set on keeping everyone on their side of the bulwark , but many of the sentry duty were just as desperate to escape as their fellow East Germans . One perk of being a border guard was that a soldier could simply wander over the border to freedom , and a lot of them did . Over 1,300 made the jump in the first two old age of the wall ’s cosmos .
The most famous of these escapes was made by 19 - yr - old safeguard Conrad Schumann on August 15 , 1961 , just the third day of the rampart ’s structure . Since the “ wall ” was really just mickle of barbed wire at that level , Schumann skip over over the wire in his uniform while sum his car gun . A lensman caught Schumann ’s flee leap , and the leap to freedom became an iconic Cold War mental image . Schumann finally settled in the southwestern state of Bavaria and worked as a automobile hustler . He intrust suicide in 1998 .
