Showdown at the Wall

Chris Gueffroy, age 20, made a desperate bid to escape over the Berlin Wall—just months before it came crashing down 30 years ago

October 7, 2019

By Joe Bubar

Chris Gueffroy lived his entire 20 years trapped behind the Berlin Wall, unable to reach freedom just on the other side. The imposing structure ran nearly 100 miles, stood 12 feet high in most places, and had 300 watchtowers manned by armed guards. It divided the city into two vastly different worlds: democratic West Berlin and, where Gueffroy lived, Communist East Berlin, controlled by the Soviet Union.

For most of the 1.3 million East Berliners, it was illegal to cross the wall. Attempting to do so could get you thrown in prison—or worse. But Gueffroy, four months shy of his 21st birthday, wanted to see the world. Close to midnight on February 5, 1989, he and a friend, Christian Gaudian, tried to scale the wall. That’s when the guards, with orders to shoot to kill, raised their automatic rifles and took aim.

Today, 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gueffroy’s story and the stories of hundreds of others like him reflect the desperate acts people undertook to flee the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union.

“Human beings have a basic desire for a measure of freedom, to move around, to do things, to think and create,” says historian Frederick Taylor, author of The Berlin Wall. “And I think you can’t, in the end, suppress it.”

A Tale of Two Cities

On August 13, 1961, about seven years before Gueffroy was born, Berliners awoke to find their city split in half. Barbed wire and concrete posts had appeared overnight along the border of West and East Berlin, separating family members, friends, and classmates.

Before long, these barriers would be transformed into a more formidable concrete and barbed wire structure. It would serve as a physical representation of the “iron curtain” separating the U.S. and its democratic allies in the West from the Communist nations in the East, led by the Soviet Union, during the Cold War.

Though the barbed wire beginnings of the Wall appeared overnight, they’d been years in the making. During World War II (1939-45), the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union had joined forces to defeat Adolf Hitler’s Germany. After the war, Germany was divided among the three victors and France. The U.S., Great Britain, and France took over the western three-quarters of Germany and in 1949 installed a democratic government in what became West Germany. The Soviets installed a Communist regime in the eastern section, which became East Germany (see map).

Berlin, which had been Germany’s capital, sat entirely in East Germany, but it too was divided, with U.S., French, and British forces controlling the western half. That part remained accessible to the West by planes, trains, and highways.

For 12 years, Berliners could travel freely within the city, and many East Germans used Berlin as an escape route to flee Communism. About 2.5 million East Germans fled to West Berlin from 1949 to 1961. Alarmed that their country was losing its young, educated workforce to the West, East German leaders came up with the drastic solution to barricade the border.

East Germans were cut off from the Western world. Under Communism, they lived in a police state where they lacked basic freedoms. The Stasi, the secret police, imprisoned citizens who spoke out against the government. Goods were hard to come by, with people waiting years to buy a car or even get a phone.

On August 13, 1961, about seven years before Gueffroy was born, Berliners awoke to find their city split in half. Barbed wire and concrete posts had appeared overnight along the border of West and East Berlin. The barrier separated family members, friends, and classmates.

Before long, these blockades would be transformed into a more formidable concrete and barbed wire structure. It would serve as a physical representation of the “iron curtain.” That divide separated the U.S. and its democratic allies in the West from the Communist nations in the East, led by the Soviet Union, during the Cold War.

Though the barbed wire beginnings of the Wall appeared overnight, they’d been years in the making. During World War II (1939-45), the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union had joined forces to defeat Adolf Hitler’s Germany. After the war, Germany was divided among the three victors and France. The U.S., Great Britain, and France took over the western three-quarters of Germany. In 1949, the three nations installed a democratic government in what became West Germany. The Soviets installed a Communist regime in the eastern section. That area became East Germany (see map).

Berlin had been Germany’s capital. The city sat entirely in East Germany, but it too was divided. The U.S., French, and British forces gained control of the western half. That part remained accessible to the West by planes, trains, and highways.

For 12 years, Berliners could travel freely within the city. During that period, many East Germans used Berlin as an escape route to flee Communism. About 2.5 million East Germans fled to West Berlin from 1949 to 1961. East German leaders were alarmed that their country was losing its young, educated workforce to the West. In response, they came up with the drastic solution to barricade the border.

East Germans were cut off from the Western world. Under Communism, they lived in a police state where they lacked basic freedoms. The Stasi, the secret police, imprisoned citizens who spoke out against the government. Goods were hard to come by. People waited years to buy a car or even get a phone.

Practically from the moment the border was sealed in 1961, East Berliners began trying to escape. They leapt from the windows of apartments looking out onto West Berlin. Some forged passports. Others crawled through sewers. About 300 people escaped through underground tunnels, many of which had been dug by groups of college students in West Berlin seeking to reunite with loved ones. According to Taylor, young people were often the ones leading the escapes from East Berlin.

“Young people were restless,” he says, “and they were curious, and they were influenced by Western culture, like rock music.”

In total, about 5,000 East Berliners escaped, another 5,000 were caught, and nearly 200 were killed. The stories of these daring attempts shocked the world. Two U.S. presidents traveled to the West Berlin to condemn the Wall. In a 1963 speech, John F. Kennedy declared, “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (“I am a Berliner!”) And in 1987, Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Shoot to Kill?

Growing up in East Berlin, Gueffroy dreamed of traveling to the U.S. In a 2014 NBC interview, his mom, Karin Gueffroy, recalls telling him he’d never “be able to leave East Germany, it will never work.”

“Why not, Mom?” she remembers her son saying. “They cannot always decide everything for me, for all of us, from birth to death.”

He became more desperate to leave East Berlin when he was drafted into the National People’s Army in January 1989, at age 20. Gueffroy didn’t want to serve a government that denied him the freedom of movement. So he and his friend Gaudian hatched their escape plan for the following month. They’d heard that the border guards’ shoot to kill order had been abandoned. That assumption would prove to be a tragic mistake.

By this time, the Berlin Wall had become a menacing structure that was actually made up of two concrete walls spread up to 160 yards apart. Between the two walls stood a barbed wire fence, watchtowers, and other obstacles, such as trip-wire machine guns, trenches, and metal spikes sticking out of the ground.

Young people were often leading the escapes from East Berlin.

In the midnight darkness, Gueffroy and Gaudian scaled the first wall using grappling hooks they’d made out of gardening hoes and rope. But as they climbed the inner fence, they set off an alarm. With the shoot to kill order still in effect, the floodlights switched on and guards fired as the young men frantically zigzagged across the area known as the death strip.

Gaudian was the lucky one. He was struck in the foot but survived, and he spent seven months in prison. Gueffroy was hit in the chest 10 times and killed instantly.

In the official report of their attempted escape, there’s no mention of a shooting. Instead, it says the guards placed “both border violators under arrest.” That was the extent to which East German leaders sought to control what information was made public. The world only found out the truth about Gueffroy’s death from a West German reporter who managed to sneak into his funeral. The news of the killing sparked an international outcry.

The Fall of the Wall

Rawdon Wyatt/Alamy Stock Photo

A monument to Gueffroy at the Berlin Wall Memorial in Berlin

Gueffroy turned out to be the last fugitive killed by East German border guards. A series of events happened after his death that contributed to the fall of the Wall. In May 1989, a new reform government in Hungary (a Soviet satellite state) opened its border to neighboring Austria, which was outside the Eastern Bloc. Tens of thousands of East Germans rushed there as an escape path to freedom in the West.

By then, East Berliners could sense a shifting tide. Since coming to power four years earlier, Gorbachev had instituted economic and political reforms that gave Soviet citizens more freedoms. Emboldened, East Germans held mass rallies against the Communist state and finally, on November 9, 1989, East German leaders announced that their citizens could travel to the West without restrictions—bringing an end to 28 years of imprisonment. The Berlin Wall soon came tumbling down, too late for Gueffroy to realize his dream.

The ruling Communist government held free elections in March 1990. Later that year, West and East Germany reunited and elected a democratic government. In 1991, the bankrupt Soviet Union itself collapsed.

Today Germany has the largest economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world (after the U.S., China, and Japan), and is a strong U.S. ally. Russia, the Soviet Union’s successor, remains a major U.S. rival (see “A Cold War 2.0?”).

After Germany’s reunification, the guards who’d shot Gueffroy were put on trial, the first of many involving border agents who’d killed Berlin Wall fugitives. However, most East German guards never went to prison.

Still, Gueffroy’s death, and that of dozens of others who tried to escape over the Wall, weren’t in vain, according to Taylor. They affected the Soviet Union, he says, by keeping the Wall in the public eye as a symbol of the regime’s oppressiveness.

As Karin Gueffroy once said: “All of those who died removed a brick, and that finally resulted in the fall of the Wall.”

By then, East Berliners could sense a shifting tide. Since coming to power four years earlier, Gorbachev had instituted economic and political reforms that gave Soviet citizens more freedoms. Emboldened, East Germans held mass rallies against the Communist state. Finally, on November 9, 1989, East German leaders announced that their citizens could travel to the West without restrictions. That move brought an end to 28 years of imprisonment. The Berlin Wall soon came tumbling down, too late for Gueffroy to realize his dream.

Today Germany has the largest economy in Europe and the fourth-largest in the world (after the U.S., China, and Japan). The nation is a strong U.S. ally. Russia, the Soviet Union’s successor, remains a major U.S. rival (see “A Cold War 2.0?”).

After Germany’s reunification, the guards who’d shot Gueffroy were put on trial. It was the first of many involving border agents who’d killed Berlin Wall fugitives. But most East German guards never went to prison.

As Karin Gueffroy once said: “All of those who died removed a brick, and that finally resulted in the fall of the Wall.”

A Cold War 2.0?

Have the U.S. and Russia entered a new arms race?

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War. But some experts think the U.S. and the Soviet Union’s successor, Russia, are on the brink of a new tense era. This summer, both countries tested nuclear missiles that had been banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (I.N.F.), signed near the end of the Cold War by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The two countries withdrew from the I.N.F. Treaty in August, with U.S. officials having long accused Russia of violating it.

Many are concerned that a new arms race between the two largest nuclear powers makes everyone less safe. Former energy secretary Ernest Moniz and former senator Sam Nunn write in the magazine Foreign Affairs: “Not since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis has the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation involving the use of nuclear weapons been as high as it is today.”

Timeline: The Cold War

1945: Yalta Conference

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin lay plans for postwar Europe.

1948-49: Berlin Airlift

The Soviet Union blockades West Berlin in 1948. A U.S.-led daily airlift keeps the city’s residents from starving until the blockade is lifted in 1949.