Bernauer Straße

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The title of this article contains the character ß. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Bernauer Strasse.

Bernauer Straße is one of the only three remaining locations of the Berlin Wall. This was later turned into a memorial in 1999.

When Berlin was a divided city, the Berlin Wall ran along this street. This street became famous for escapes from windows of appartment blocks in the eastern part of the city, down to the street which was in the West.

The entrances and windows of these houses were successively bricked up by the East Germans and access to the roof was blocked. By autumn 1961, the last of these houses had been compulsorily emptied and the buildings themselves were then demolished from 1963. For the ten people known to have died trying to escape in the area of the Bernauer Straße, there is a memorial tablet at the entrance to Swinemünder Straße.

Escape tunnels were also dug under the wall in the Bernauer Straße. In 1962, one came out in number 7 Schönholzer Straße. 29 East Berliners of all ages crept along the tunnel to freedom in West Berlin, unnoticed by the border guards. Another tunnel ended in number 55 Strelitzer Straße (in the East) and, over two nights in 1964, 57 East Germans managed to escape. But there were shots exchanged between the border guards and the tunnel diggers, and, unfortunately, Egon Schultz, a border guard, was killed, hit by bullets from friend and foe.

It is perhpas of note that the dismantling of this stretch of wall was the first time that British soldiers (62 Transport and Movement Squadron, Royal Corps of Transport and Royal Engineers) based in the Brish Sector had worked directly with the former East German army. Heavy Goods Vehicles belonging to the transport squadron were provided to carry sections of the concrete wall away to an area near to Potsdam. This journey involved travelling through areas occupied by the crumbled Russian armed forces and for those of us involved was a very strange experience.