On the night of October 26, 1961, two men crept onto the roof of the building at Ackerstraße 41. They climbed over to the house next door and using a clothes line, slid down to the roof of Ackerstraße 43 that was ten meters lower. They waited there until morning. West Berlin firemen spread a rescue net out in front of the building at about 9 a.m. Members of a construction squad that was erecting border obstacles on the grounds of the Sophien parish cemetery reported this to the border guards. But they did not notice the escapee R. until he jumped from the roof of the building to the West. The other man went completely unnoticed.