Weirdest Attempts to Cross the Berlin Wall (1961-1989)

daring Escape attempts from East Germany 1961-1989 in 1949 Germany was split into two independent nations there was West Germany which was allied with the Western democracies and East Germany which was allied with the USSR the new Border in Berlin was relatively easy to escape across and by August 1961 up to 1700 people a day were leaving the Communist East through Berlin and claiming asylum in the West because of this that same year the East German border was abruptly closed to stop this Mass Exodus of people from leaving first the Berlin Wall was an impromptu barrier of barbed wire and cinderblocks but was then rebuilt into a massive four meter high concrete wall equipped with guard towers gun and placements and mines the wall was a symbol of the Cold War dividing Western and Eastern Europe the Allied territory and the Soviet territory capitalism and communism for the people of Berlin it meant families and friends were torn apart and heartbreak in despair was suffered on both sides of the capital wall was a forbidding obstacle to many people who sought freedom from the harsh communist regime border guards were armed and although they were not given orders to shoot the ones that did fire their weapons at potential escapees received commendations and bonuses while audiological indoctrination of young soldiers tended to transform the permission to use weapons into an obligation to use them between 1961 and 1989 more than one hundred thousand citizens from East Germany tried to escape across the border more than 600 of them were shot and killed by the border guards at the Berlin Wall Alone 5 000 people attempted the crossing and 100 of them were either shot died accidentally or committed suicide when they were caught by the authorities their attempts to escape ranged from being quite ingenious to downright suicidal by armored personnel carrier in 1963 Wolfgang Engels was a 20 year old car mechanic and driver in the East German Army one day while his crew was at lunch he stole a BTR 152 armored personnel carrier from his military base and drove it through the streets of East Berlin on the way he stopped and offered a group of young people a ride to freedom but they laughed at him and declined his invitation police were used to seeing military vehicles on the road so they halted the traffic to allow him to cross through the intersections without stopping as he approached the Berlin Wall he put his foot down and accelerated into it at speed but got stuck halfway through as he climbed out of the armored personnel carrier he was shot at by East German border guards and hit twice but he was pulled to safety by a West German Guard from the other side Engels was rushed to a nearby hospital where he eventually recovered from his wounds he settled in West Germany and became a teacher but his mother a staunch communist disowned him as a traitor and never spoke to him again by tunneling the wall was built so quickly that many berliners found themselves trapped in the eastern half of the city and cut off from their friends and family one group of around 40 young students in the west decided to build a tunnel to help rescue some of those stuck in the East they found a basement less than 100 meters from the Eastern side of the city and in May 1962 set about work digging the tunnel the going was tough the soil was Clay and difficult to dig and they had no resources a similar tunnel that had been built by some other students had collapsed almost killing them by chance an NBC News producer was in Berlin looking for ways to tell the story of berliners Trapped By the wall in the East a after meeting with a group of students NBC agreed to finance the entire Escape tunnel in return for the rights to film The Dig the students spent the money on tools food and equipment and even built an underground rest area that allowed them to sleep and wash down there so they were able to dig 24 7. one in six East Germans worked for the secret police so the chance of imprisonment or even death if betrayed was high and so to throw off the scent the group changed the tunnel's exit point to a disused toilet block by late September 1962 the tunnel was ready for its first escapees after sending coded messages to the east over short-range radios the first fugitives were brought through the tunnel more than two dozen men women and children were brought over to West Germany unfortunately the tunnel had to be abandoned after two trips due to severe leaking and it was only discovered by the secret police when it collapsed 11 days later by tightrope Horst Klein was a trapeze artist living in East Germany he had been banned from performing his art for having anti-communist beliefs Klein said that quote he couldn't live any longer without the smell of the circus end quote in early 1963 he made one of the most daring escapes of all Klein climbed up an old misused electricity pylon and pulled himself hand over hand along one of the cables across the wall almost 20 meters above the heads of the patrolling guards below when his arms got tired he swung his whole body up over the cable and shimied his way along to the other side Klein's descent wasn't particularly graceful though he fell off the cable and crashed to the ground breaking both his arms but he had landed on the other side of the wall and was now free to perform again by zip wire in 1983 eight years after Ingo Beta had escaped East Berlin his brother holda decided to follow him into the West Ingo had crept over the border on a foggy night carefully navigated the minefields and paddled across the river Elba on an inflatable air mattress holder had a brilliant idea he was going to escape over the wall using a zip wire for two weeks he and his friend Michael Becker pretended to be circus performers and practiced their act in a public park they were surveying the area for the perfect place to cross and made sketches of the area too they took along a paper Target and a bow and arrow and practiced doing archery all the time firing at longer and longer distances when they were confident that they were ready Holger and Michael put on electricians overalls as a disguise and went to an empty house alongside the Border they waited in the attic for over 13 hours and kept in constant radio contact with Ingo who was on the other side of the Border as the agreed time neared ingold drove to the West German side of the wall and waited for his brother Holger shot an arrow with a thin narrow line attached to it that was connected to a 200-meter cable over the wall and towards the roof of an apartment building but his first and second attempts failed to go over properly after the third Arrow Flew Over the roof and landed in West Berlin Holger fastened his end of the cable inside the attic and Indo secured his end to the bumper of his car using homemade wooden pulleys and with a running start holder and Michael took off Unfortunately they had overestimated the downward angle of the cable run and the pair gradually slowed down to a stop hanging there over no man's land Holger swung his legs up out of the wire and inched his way across to the apartment building on the other side unnoticed by the border patrols below he was closely followed by his friend minutes later and they landed safely and he was reunited with his brother [Music] fall of the Berlin Wall towards the end of the 1980s the USSR began opening itself up to Partnerships with Western countries and adopting a more liberal stance with a decrease in censorship and greater Freedom of Information in 1989 a series of public demonstrations in nearby Eastern Bloc Nations set off a chain reaction in East Germany the people had been shown what life was like outside of communist Rule and after several weeks of unrest the East German government announced that all citizens could freely visit West Germany if they wanted to thousands of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall joined by West Germans on the other side over the next few weeks people began to chip away at the wall collecting pieces to take home as souvenirs and on October 3rd 1990 the Berlin Wall was officially demolished its destruction symbolized the end of the Eastern Bloc and the rule of Communism shortly afterwards the USSR collapsed foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Simple History

Views: 399,852

Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, Weirdest Attempts to Cross the Berlin Wall, cold war, east berlin, berlin wall, tunnel 57, germany, 1961-1989, Armoured Personnel Carrier, BTR-152, East German army, border guards, German Democratic Republic, DDR, Grenztruppen der DDR, Wolfgang Engels, Tunnelling, Tightrope, Zipwire, Horst Klein, Michael Becker, Holger, Ingo Bethke, Eastern Bloc, USSR, creative, strange, escape, escapes

Id: hYMwhrYB3u0

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024