Wollankstraße Tunnel

Escape Site Free open-air site S-Bahnhof Wollankstraße, 13359 Berlin

In January 1962, a group of students led by brothers Boris and Eduard Franzke began digging a tunnel beneath the S-Bahnhof Wollankstraße, aiming to reach Schulzestraße in East Berlin. After three weeks and approximately 30 metres of digging, the tunnel collapsed under the station platform on 26 January 1962, revealing the escape attempt before anyone could use it.

The S-Bahnhof Wollankstraße occupied a unique position on the Cold War map of Berlin. Although the station itself lay in East Berlin’s Pankow district, West Berliners could enter and exit without border checks – an anomaly that made the area a focal point for escape plans.

The discovered escape tunnel beneath S-Bahnhof Wollankstraße, 1962 (Photo: Bundesarchiv)

The GDR seized on the discovery for propaganda. Transport Minister Erwin Kramer held a press conference at the station, presenting the tunnel to journalists and denouncing it as an “agent conduit” built by Western provocateurs. The dramatic photographs from that press conference, now held in the Bundesarchiv, remain some of the most vivid images of failed escape attempts from the Wall era.

Though no one escaped through this tunnel, the attempt demonstrates the desperate ingenuity and courage of those who tried to breach the Wall in its earliest months.