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Tunnel escapes
The plates in the ground here show the location of two escape tunnels. Soon after the Wall was built in 1961, many people tried to escape across the border grounds at Bernauer Strasse. As the above-ground border became increasingly impermeable, people tried escaping underground, through the sewers, S-Bahn and U-Bahn shafts, and tunnels like this one.
View into "Tunnel 57", 1964. © BStU
Escape helpers dug two escape tunnels from the west side of the city to East Berlin in 1963-64. Both tunnels began in the cellar of a bakery at Bernauer Strasse 97.
The first tunnel, marked “Escape Tunnel 1964,” took five months to complete. Unfortunately, it accidentally ended in a coal yard in clear view of the guards. Only three young women were able to escape through this tunnel before it was discovered by border guards.
Escape helpers help three-year-old Jörg Klein out of "Tunnel 57" to freedom. © Stiftung Berliner Mauer, Schenkung von Doris Herrmann
A few months later, the escape helpers used the same bakery cellar in West Berlin to build a second tunnel. This time they dug the tunnel deeper, about twelve meters below the surface. On the nights of October 3 and 4, 57 people climbed through the tunnel and reached freedom in the West. It was named Tunnel 57 after the number of people who made it through.
On the second night, “Tunnel 57” was betrayed. Border soldiers and a tunnel digger became entangled in an exchange of fire during which Egon Schultz, an East German officer, was killed. He had accidentally been shot by one of his own comrades.
Pistol of the escape helpers from "Tunnel 57". © Stiftung Berliner Mauer
The East German leadership covered up the truth and celebrated Schultz as a hero. It blamed his death on the escape helpers. It was not until after the Wall came down in 1989 that Schultz’s family and the public learned that the fatal shot had not in fact been fired by an escape helper.
At least ten escape tunnels were built on Bernauer Strasse between 1962 and 1971, but only three were actually used successfully. Many tunnel projects failed as a result of difficult construction conditions. Others were betrayed or thwarted by countermeasures taken by the Ministry for State Security.
Contemporary witnesses talk about the tunnel escapes
Eva and Klaus Klein lived in East Berlin before 1961. After the Wall was built and the border closed, they decided to flee with their 3-year-old son. The construction of the Wall caused them to lose faith in the GDR. On October 3, 1964, they finally managed to flee as a family through "Tunnel 57" to West Berlin.
Joachim Neumann fled to West Berlin in December 1961 with a Swiss passport. The civil engineering student then volunteered as an escape helper and helped dig six tunnels, three of which were successful. Above all, he wanted to bring his girlfriend Christa to the West. She finally managed to escape through "Tunnel 57". Joachim Neumann later worked as a civil engineering specialist in tunnel construction.
Christa Neumann wanted to flee to West Berlin after the Wall was built. Her boyfriend and later husband Joachim Neumann, who built tunnels as an escape helper, was already living in the West. She wanted to flee to West Berlin through "Tunnel 29" as early as 1962. However, she was betrayed shortly beforehand and was imprisoned from April 1963 to September 1964. Shortly after her release, she managed to escape through "Tunnel 57" with the help of Joachim Neumann. The two married in May 1965.