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 Escape Tunnels, Bernauer Strasse - Berlin, Germany
N 52° 32.284 E 013° 23.774
33U E 391228 N 5822095
One of the hottest spots of the Cold War
Waymark Code: WM100MP
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date Posted: 02/03/2019
Views: 6
Right at the entrance to the Bernauer Strasse Subway Station, a line on the pavement marks the border between BERLIN-MITTE and BERLIN-WEDDING.
What today is nothing more that the crossing from one Berlin burrow to another, was once the heaviest guarded border in the world. |
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After the end of World War II, Bernauer Straße (German for Bernau Street) marked the border between the French and Russian sector in Berlin. A border between two very different worlds, but still only marked by a simple sign. (Picture below left).
But then, on August 13, 1961, East German authorities started blocking the border (picture below right).
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Border crossing between French and Soviet sector, May 1960
Source: historical marker at the station
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Building the Wall, August 1961
Source: stern.de
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Nowhere along the inner-city border, houses in the West and houses in the East were closer to each other than along Bernauer Strasse. With the "Death Stripe", the booby trapped area between the fence on the eastern side and the wall on the western side here being smaller than anywhere else, this was the preferred place for people trying to escape.
Because of the clearly marked line at the subway entrance (below left),we picked the subway station as location for the waymark, but there are interesting sights to both sides just a few feet away:
The first successful refugee was Wall Jumper Konrad Schumann, an East German border guard, who jumped the fence on August 15, 1961. A mural (below center) and a mall statue (below right) honor his courageous effort.
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A man trying to run across the death stripe,
October 16, 1961;
Source:rarehistoricalphotos.com |
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Others were not as lucky: For every person killed along the Wall,
a small marker dispays the spot of the tragedy.
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The picture above (Source: flickr) illustrates the relatively short distance between the wall on the eastern side (back) and the wall on the western side (front). The subway station was caught in no man's land and was demolished in 1965 (picture right; source: historical marker at the station). |
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Some people tried to get over the Wall - others tried to get under it. Between 1961 and 1973, 39 different attempts were made to build tunnels under the Wall. Because of the relatively short distance between the last house in the East and the first house in the West in this area, nine of these tunnels started along Bernauer Strasse. |
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Whenever a tunnel was discovered, East-German authorities had it completely destroyed. Thus, there is no physical evidence of the tunnels anymore. But at Bernauer Strasse, the locations of the tunnels are marked by bronze plaques (see our pictures above).
Perhaps the most famous tunnel (just 100 yards from the subway station) was Tunnel 29, so named because on September 14, 1962, 29 people managed to escape through it. The builders had the tunnel well documented (see pictures right and below; source: Tunnelfluchten.de). In 2001, a movie was made about this tunnel. |
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Especially one picture illustrates the optimism and the sense of humor of the tunnel-diggers:
Digging started from the basement of a house in West-Berlin. When the diggers had reached the halfway-point, they pinned a sign to the wall:
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR
This could very well be the only ever documented border crossing underground!
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Adress of the monument:
U-Bahnhof Bernauer Strasse
Berlin, BE Germany
10119
When was this monument palced?: 9/11/2008
Who placed this monument?: City of Berlin
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Visit Instructions:
Post at least one clear picture of the monument, where you and/or your GPS device is on. More pictures are welcome.
Please write your impression about the monument.
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