At about one o’clock in the morning on October 27, 1968, a man used a folding ladder to climb over the inner fence that stood next to the building at Schönholzer Strasse 8. He crept along the gable wall until he reached the signal fence, which he was able to climb over without triggering the alarm. He pulled the ladder behind him and ran to the border wall, which he also climbed without difficulty. The border soldiers on the watchtower at Ruppiner Strasse did not notice him until he was on the Wall. They wanted to fire at him, but were unable to get the window open. By the time they had broken the window pane and fired a salve, the man was already in the West.