Klaus-Michael von Keussler

Klaus-Michael von Keussler (born December 12, 1939 in Königsberg ) is a German lawyer and former escape helper on the inner-German border .

Career

Klaus von Keussler initially studied law at the University of Hamburg , and from the summer of 1961 at the Free University of Berlin . In Berlin he moved into a room in the dormitory of the church college in Berlin-Zehlendorf . There he came into contact through fellow students with the student escape helpers group around Wolfgang Fuchs .

Between 1962 and 1964, von Keussler was involved in the construction of several escape tunnels between East and West Berlin. The most successful action was tunnel 57 . Disguised as a film team, von Keussler and the escape group rented a former bakery with basement rooms at Bernauer Strasse 97 in June 1963. Their plan was to dig a ten meter deep and 145 meter long tunnel across the course of the wall up to Strelitzer Strasse 54. By October 1964, the group dug the escape tunnel to East Berlin. Between October 2 and October 4, 1964, 57 people came through the tunnel to West Berlin.

Later, Klaus von Keussler worked for many years in international cooperation, including at the United Nations . In 1992 he went to Erfurt and worked as a senior ministerial advisor in the Thuringian Ministry of Finance until his retirement .

Honors

• 2012: Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany

Fonts

• Escape helpers: the group around Wolfgang Fuchs - Berlin: Berlin Story-Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-95723-013-3 (with Peter Schulenburg )

Web links

• Hanno Müller: Klaus-M. von Keussler was an escape helper out of conviction , in: Thüringer Allgemeine, July 2, 2011