page_title: Escape attempts and victims of the inner German border
section_title: Escape methods
hierarchical_section_title: Escape attempts and victims of the inner German border / Escape methods
caption_attribution_description: English: Wellington boot modified with metal hooks to enable its owner to climb the fences on the inner German border. On display at the Grenzmuseum Schifflersgrund.
context_page_description: There were numerous escape attempts and victims of the inner German border during its 45 years of existence from 1945 to 1990.
context_section_description: Refugees used a variety of methods to escape across the border. The great majority crossed on foot, though some took more unusual routes. One of the most spectacular was the balloon escape in September 1979 of eight people from two families in a home-made hot-air balloon. Their flight involved an ascent to more than 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) before landing near the West German town of Naila, inspiring the 1982 film Night Crossing and the 2018 film Balloon. Other escapees relied more on physical strength and endurance. An escapee in 1987 used meat hooks to scale the border fences, while in 1971 a doctor swam 45 kilometres (28 mi) across the Baltic Sea from Rostock almost to the Danish island of Lolland, before he was picked up by a West German yacht. Another escapee used an air mattress to escape across the Baltic in 1987. Mass escapes were rare. One of the few that succeeded took place on 2 October 1961, when 53 people from the border village of  Böseckendorf – a quarter of the village's population – escaped en masse, followed by another 13 inhabitants in February 1963.  An unusual mass escape occurred in September 1964 when 14 East Germans, including eleven children, were smuggled across the border in a refrigerated truck. They were able to escape detection by being concealed under the carcasses of slaughtered and stuffed pigs being transported to the West.
  Those working on or near the border were occasionally able to use their privileged access and knowledge to escape. For the border guards, this presented special dangers, as their colleagues were under orders to shoot without warning if an escape attempt was made. The dilemmas they faced were highlighted in the May 1969 defection of a soldier and a non-commissioned officer (NCO) of the Grenztruppen. When the NCO made his escape, the soldier, Jürgen Lange, decided not to shoot him. As this exposed Lange to severe punishment by his superiors for disobeying the order to shoot, Lange made his own escape ten minutes later. When he reached the West German side, Lange found that his rifle had been sabotaged by his NCO to prevent him firing in the first place. Soviet soldiers also sometimes escaped across the border, though this was very rare. Only eight such defections succeeded between 1953 and 1984.
  The traffic was not solely one-way; thousands of people a year migrated from West Germany to East Germany. The East German press described such individuals as "west zone refugees" who were fleeing "political pressure", "growing unlawfulness", or "worsening economic conditions". Research carried out by the West German government found more prosaic reasons, such as marital problems, family estrangement, and the homesickness of those who had lived in East Germany in the past. A number of Allied military personnel, including British, French, West German, and United States troops, also defected. By the end of the Cold War, as many as 300 United States citizens were thought to have defected across the Iron Curtain for a variety of reasons – whether to escape criminal charges, for political reasons, or because (as the St. Petersburg Times put it) "girl-hungry GIs [were tempted] with seductive sirens, who usually desert the love-lorn soldier once he is across the border." The fate of such defectors varied considerably. Some were sent straight to labour camps on charges of espionage. Others committed suicide, while a few were able to find wives and work on the eastern side of the border.
caption: Boot modified with metal hooks to enable the wearer to climb the border fence
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