Tunnel 29

Memorial plaque on the house at Schönholzer Strasse 7, in Berlin-Mitte

Tunnel 29 was an escape tunnel in Berlin that led from a factory site at Bernauer Strasse 78 under the Berlin Wall to a cellar at Schönholzer Strasse 7. According to various sources, the tunnel, which is between 120 and 140 meters long, was built in early summer 1962 by a student escape aid group around the Italians Domenico Sesta and Luigi Spina and the student Hasso Herschel , who fled the GDR in 1961 . After the tunnel was completed, a total of 29 people - the number of refugees was eponymous - were able to flee through the tunnel on September 14 and 15, 1962.

The two Italians had promised an East Berlin family to flee. Hasso Herschel wanted to bring his sister and her family to the West. During the construction work, in which around 30 helpers took part, there were several construction stops due to water ingress. In contrast to many other escape tunnels, tunnel 29 did not result in any fatal accidents, injuries or arrests.

To finance the tunnel, the Italians had sold the film rights to the American television station NBC , who followed the construction work with two cameramen. Spina and Sesta received DM 15,000 each and the television rights for Germany and Italy. Herschel was not to be let into the details of the contract and was promised DM 2000. After Herschel threatened to leave, he got the same conditions as the Italians. This financing model was new to Escape Aid in Berlin and after the escape led to a break in the group. 17 former helpers publicly distanced themselves from Herschel, Sesta and Spina.

The tunnel is part of the Berlin Wall History Mile and was the basis for the fictional television film Der Tunnel , which Sat.1 broadcast in 2001. Astrid Nora Moeller , a niece of Herschel, who came to West Berlin through the tunnel with her mother as a toddler, produced the documentary The Fluchthelfer - Ways to Freedom , published in 2011 .

literature

• Dietmar Arnold , Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The escape tunnel from Berlin . 2nd Edition. List, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-548-60934-8 , pp. 117 ff . (First edition: 2009).
• Marion Detjen: A hole in the wall. The history of refugee aid in divided Germany 1961–1989 . Siedler, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-88680-834-3 , p. 130 ff .
• Ellen Sesta: The tunnel to freedom. Berlin, Bernauer Strasse . Munich 2001, ISBN 3898340333 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see also histomapberlin.de : Map 4236 and 423B (keyword: Wolgaster Straße), especially from the years 1956, 1962. Since 1980 there has been a children's facility on the cleared areas west of Wolgaster Straße. // Also building damage in 1945: Bernauer / Wolgaster Straße
2. ↑ 120 meters: Escape helper Rainer Haack, Tunnel 29 ( Memento of the original dated February 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 14, 2012; 126 meters: Tunnel 29 exposed , Der Spiegel , accessed on August 14, 2012; 135 meters: memorial plaque; 140 meters: Berlin Wall Memorial ( Memento of the original from July 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 14, 2012  

Web links

Commons : Tunnel 29  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• NBC documentary "East Germans escape through tunnel", 1962

Coordinates: 52 ° 32 '18.4 "  N , 13 ° 23' 52.5"  E