Tunnel 57

On 3–4 October 1964, 57 people crawled through a 12-metre-deep tunnel from a disused bakery cellar on Bernauer Straße to Strelitzer Straße in the East – the largest single mass escape through a tunnel during the wall’s existence. The operation was discovered during the second night when an East German border guard was fatally shot, ending the escapes.

The tunnel was dug over several months in 1964 by a group of West Berlin students, many of them from the Free University. Starting from a disused bakery cellar at Bernauer Straße 97, they excavated a passage roughly 12 metres below the surface, running under the death strip and the wall to emerge in an outdoor toilet in the courtyard of Strelitzer Straße 55 on the eastern side.

On the nights of 3 and 4 October 1964, 57 men, women, and children crawled through the narrow tunnel to freedom – the largest single mass escape through a tunnel during the entire existence of the Berlin Wall. The operation was discovered on the second night when an East German border guard stumbled upon the exit. In the confrontation that followed, the guard was fatally shot, and the tunnel was sealed.

A memorial plaque at Bernauer Straße 97 marks the western entrance of Tunnel 57. The escape is documented in detail at the nearby Berlin Wall Memorial visitor centre and in numerous books and films about the tunnel escapes of the 1960s.

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