Victims of the Wall

All 140 people

Willi Born

1950–1970

Willi Born, a 19-year-old tractor driver doing his military service, left his unit and entered the border area near Bergfelde on 7 July 1970. Cornered by border soldiers in a patch of woods, he took his own life.

Dark memorial stele in a pine forest with a large black-and-white photograph of a young man with dark hair and printed text below
Memorial stele for Willi Born on the Berlin Wall Trail (Mauerweg) in Frohnau, photographed in 2014 Photo: Josef Papi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Willi Born was born in July 1950. He had six younger siblings and spent his early childhood in Klein-Marzehns in the Belzig district. His mother died while he was still young, and at the age of 13 he spent a period in a children's home in the Königswusterhausen district before going back to his father, who had remarried. By then the large family had made a new home in Lindow in the Mark Brandenburg.

He trained as an agricultural technician and then worked as a tractor driver at the agricultural cooperative in Lindow, where his father also worked. In 1969 he married, and the young couple soon moved to Velten, just north of Berlin. The couple had little time to build a life together, because at 19 he had to do his military service with the motorised rifle regiment in Oranienburg.

In the early hours of 7 July 1970, three weeks before his 20th birthday, he left his unit, at first unnoticed. As he made his way into the border area near Bergfelde, north of Berlin, in broad daylight, his absence had already been noticed at the barracks; a search was ordered and all border posts were told to keep a closer watch. At around 10:30 a.m. a guard saw him and fired a warning burst. Pursued by a number of border soldiers, he took cover in a strip of woodland. There he was cornered, and before a guard could arrest him, he shot himself. He died instantly.

His family buried him in the cemetery in Lindow. His parents suspected that private problems had led to his flight and his death. A greetings card for his 20th birthday was returned to his parents, and his stepmother kept it in his memory.

Also died on the outer ring between Bergfelde and Berlin-Reinickendorf

Sources

This profile is a summary written for this site. Every fact in it is taken from source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references.

  1. Udo Baron/Maria Nooke, “Willi Born”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. Basis for every fact in this profile, including the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  3. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke (eds.), The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: A Biographical Handbook. Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, Berlin 2011. The printed handbook from which the online biography is taken.
  4. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “140 Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989” (list), Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Berlin Wall Foundation, August 2017. PDF. Used to cross-check names and dates.
  5. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: Findings of a Research Project”, August 2017. PDF. Source of the classification into escapees, people with no intent to escape, and border soldiers.

Further reading

Image credits

  • Memorial stele for Willi Born on the Berlin Wall Trail (Mauerweg) in Frohnau, photographed in 2014. Josef Papi, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Willi Born”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/born-willi/

Map

The pin position is based on the place of death described in source 1. Base map © OpenStreetMap contributors; course of the Wall in 1989 from Geoportal Berlin (dl-de/zero-2.0). Accessed 23 September 2026.