figuring on the guards’ firing at us or raising an alarm with shooting. Before issuing machine pistols to those two guards that night, I planned to remove a small but necessary part of the firing mechanism. They normally wouldn’t notice this until after they had returned to the barracks and were taking their guns apart to clean them before turning them in.” With the sentries neutralized, Rudi and his companions planned to use wire snippers to cut through the fence. They had decided that each could take a few possessions in a small bag. Rudi filled his bag with his capital in the form of cameras and binoculars.
On the night set for the escape, Rudi was in the office, seemingly absorbed in studying a report, when, at five minutes before eight, an urgent call came from one of the sentries at the second barrier, who asked to be put through immediately to the area commander. “The call went through, and I listened in,” Rudi said. “The soldier reported that their guns—his and the other sentry’s—had been tampered with and would not fire. The soldiers aren’t supposed to clean their guns until after they have come off duty and are back in the barracks, but sometimes, to save time, they do this during the last hour or so before they’re relieved. The commander said to ring the alarm bell and seal the border. Here was trouble. Fortunately, no one suspected me. I was the leader of a unit, and had always set a good example.” Punctually at eight o’clock, Rudi’s companions stopped their car at the door of the border-patrol office. Rudi was there to meet them. “Are you Unteroffizier Hermann? We are from the S.S.D.,” the driver confidently announced. Rudi whispered that the plan had fouled. “I told him to turn around and drive to a place about four kilometres down the border and wait for me until about nine o’clock,” Rudi recalled. “As soon as I could, I got my gun and ran to my friends. I told them what had happened. We couldn’t waste a minute. I said to leave the car and everything, and follow me. I got ten metres ahead of them. I had a machine pistol and a hundred and twenty bullets. Each of the two men had a revolver. We got close to the first fence. The guard was at the end of the road, and couldn’t see us. We climbed over, and moved slowly toward the post at the second barrier. I told the others to lie down on the earth, and I went forward. The guard at the post asked the password. I repeated it—’Gotha-Gorki’—and approached. I told him that some border violators had been spotted in the area, and ordered him to go make a check on a railroad bridge about sixty metres away. When he was out of sight, I went back to my friends and told them to come with me in a hurry. At this time, a train passed over the bridge, and we profited from the steam and noise to get to the barbed wire. Then I covered my two friends and the girl as they started to climb the fence. A couple of minutes later, I heard footsteps, and two guards came in sight from the direction opposite the bridge. I called out, ‘Stay where you are or I shoot!’ I wasn’t sure what they’d do, so I fired about thirty shots over their heads, and they had to take cover. By then, the girl had climbed over the fence, and so had one of my friends. The other one had got his leg caught in the wire and couldn’t move. I went over, and we all got to work and tore off one of the legs of my friend’s trousers. That set him free. Then we were all safe on West Berlin territory. It hadn’t taken twenty minutes from the time we left the car. My friends were so excited they didn’t realize we were already in West Berlin. I was backing away from the fence, to make sure the guards didn’t get any ideas, and my friends started running. I started running after them. We passed some people, who took one look and screamed. I guess they saw my uniform and gun, and thought I was trying to catch the others and chase them back to East Berlin. I threw away my gun and caught up with the three others. Then we met two policemen, and they called a car, which took us to Marienfelde. That’s all there was to it.”
I asked Rudi