Under, over and through the Berlin Wall
For 28 years a wall split Berlin in two. Thousands of people found a way across it anyway: through tunnels, on ziplines, in hidden compartments, by train, by boat and on foot. At least 140 people died at the Wall. Here are their stories, each one pinned to the place it happened and backed by published sources.
113 documented events so far, in which at least 296 people reached the West.
A Berlin Experiences project
The border strip at Bernauer Straße, corner of Ackerstraße, in 1989, seen from West Berlin over the graffiti-covered Wall: an East German army Trabant patrols past a watchtower. Photo: Gerd Danigel, ddr-fotograf.de. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The map
The amber line is the Wall as it stood in 1989. Click a pin to open the story. Filter by method, outcome or years to follow a thread.
113 of 113 escapes
The Wall, as surveyed in April 1989 Dashed pin border: location approximate
Ways out
Year by year
Most escapes came in the first years, before the border was fully fortified. Choose a year to see everything that happened in it.