Oct. 5, 1964 - Fifty-seven East Germans fled through a tunnel to West Berlin over the weekend.
Their escape, the largest of its kind since the Communists built the wall in August 1961, to seal off East Berlin, came to light today. One of the tunnelers said today that they had worked on the escape route since April 29.
The East German Defense Ministry said Corporal Egon Schultz was killed by gunfire today at 12:15 a.m. as he and other guards were investigating the East Berlin entrance to the tunnel at Streilitzerstrasse.
According to the West Berlin city government, 23 men, 31 women, and three children escaped through the narrow route in small groups of two and three between Saturday and this morning.
The tunnel, from the basement underneath a closed-down bakery shop, runs for about 400 feet diagonally under the border to a cellar in Streilitzerstrasse.
The East German Defense Ministry charged that agents and murderers had penetrated into East Berlin from “the NATO base of West Berlin” and that one of these “armed bandits” killed the corporal.
The city government denied the charge. It said no Westerner had opened fire. According to an official statement, the refugees and three Western helpmates managed to reach Western safety by the time the shots rang out in East Berlin.
Some officials said it was believed possible that the corporal had been hit by mistake by another guard as the East Germans entered the tunnel, across the wall from Bernauerstrasse.
Before the weekend flight of the 57 East Germans, the largest known escape by tunnel occurred in September 1962, when 29 reached the West.

Support this project at patreon.com/realtime1960s
Comments