Victims of the Wall

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Udo Düllick

1936–1961

Udo Düllick, a 25-year-old railway engineer, tried to swim across the Spree near the Oberbaum Bridge on the night of 5 October 1961. Under fire and pursued by a police boat, he sank from exhaustion just short of the other bank and drowned.

Tall glass panel in a steel frame with text in four languages around a vertical strip photograph of the riverbank
Memorial plaque for Udo Düllick on the May-Ayim-Ufer, Berlin-Kreuzberg Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Udo Düllick was born on 3 August 1936 in Werder near Strausberg, east of Berlin, and grew up there in a Catholic family. He was a lively child, truthful and rebellious. He had a brother six years older. After his mother's early death his father remarried, and a younger half-sister was born. He trained first as a bricklayer and then studied engineering in Dresden.

His brother left for the West in 1959, but he remained in East Germany, living with his parents. He was in West Berlin with his girlfriend over the weekend of 12 and 13 August 1961, and when they returned on 13 August they most likely did not realise that the newly sealed border would be permanent. He later told his stepmother he could always find a way to the West if he needed to. Working as an engineer for the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Lichtenberg, he had long been weary of the political pressure around him; his sister recalled how hard he found it to keep his critical thoughts to himself.

On the evening of 5 October 1961 he attended a compulsory works party ahead of the state anniversary. There he quarrelled with a superior and is said to have torn the epaulettes from the man's railway uniform. This was probably what finally made him decide to leave. That same night he took a taxi to Warschauer Strasse. Being a good swimmer may have encouraged him to risk crossing the Spree, a border waterway, near the Oberbaum Bridge. Shortly before midnight, on the grounds of the Osthafenmühle, he took off his jacket, trousers and shoes and went into the water.

Guards on the bridge saw him at once. After flares and warning shots they fired at him, and finally a water police boat set off after him. He dived again and again to avoid the bullets. West Berliners on the far bank wanted to help but could not go beyond the embankment wall, because the whole width of the river there belonged to East Berlin. He had almost reached the other side when he suddenly went under. His body was recovered from the West Berlin side an hour later.

His pursuers believed they had shot him, but his body bore no bullet wounds, and the post-mortem found that the chase had left him so exhausted that he drowned. Yet mistaken assumptions also found their way into West Berlin police and press reports: according to eyewitnesses, two or even three fugitives had been involved, and so it was claimed in the West for decades that a second fugitive had died that night. Only when the East German archives were opened was it established beyond doubt that he had been alone.

At first no one in West Berlin knew who he was. On 7 October 1961 at least 2,500 people gathered for a service on the Gröbenufer in Kreuzberg, and in the following days hundreds laid flowers and wreaths there, where a few weeks later a memorial stone inscribed "Dem unbekannten Flüchtling" (To the unknown fugitive) was set up. On 18 October a large crowd attended his burial in the Jerusalem Cemetery, Kreuzberg, with a Catholic and a Protestant clergyman leading the ceremony because his faith was not known.

His parents learned from Western media reports that a man had died at the Oberbaum Bridge and anxiously contacted the West Berlin authorities; it took weeks before they knew for certain that it was their son. Out of consideration for his relatives, who feared reprisals, the West Berlin authorities nevertheless did not make his name public. In November 1961 the Catholic parish in Rehfelde, the village next to his home village, held a requiem for him, while the Stasi insisted that the circumstances of his death not be mentioned.

Glass panel in a steel frame listing names with small portrait photos, the river behind
Memorial panel for Berlin Wall victims on the May-Ayim-Ufer, Kreuzberg, listing Udo Düllick Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dark grave plate among clover inscribed "Udo Düllick * 3.8.1936 † 6.10.1961 Maueropfer"
Grave of Udo Düllick, Friedhof IV der Gemeinde Jerusalems- und Neue Kirche Photo: Georg Longino, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Also died on the sector border between Berlin-Friedrichshain and Berlin-Kreuzberg

Sources

This profile is a summary written for this site from the biography in source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references. Facts taken from other sources are listed below with what they support.

  1. Christine Brecht, “Udo Düllick”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. The biography from which this profile was written, and the source of the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  3. West Berlin police, incident report on the situation at the sector and zone border, 6 October 1961 (Polizeihistorische Sammlung, Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin), transcript on Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that his body was recovered from the West Berlin bank after an hour's search and showed no gunshot wounds.
  4. West Berlin Schutzpolizei, activity report for October 1961 to the Police President, 7 November 1961 (Polizeihistorische Sammlung), transcript on Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that the guards on the Oberbaum Bridge opened fire after lighting up the area with flares.
  5. Federal Ministry for All-German Questions, Violations of Human Rights, Illegal Acts and Incidents at the Sector Border in Berlin since the Building of the Wall (13 August 1961 – 15 August 1962), Bonn and Berlin, 1962; full text on the Internet Archive. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that a medical examination found he had drowned, with no visible wounds.
  6. “Gedenkstein für den unbekannten Flüchtling”, Orte des Erinnerns, Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that he was at first unidentified and that his name was withheld out of consideration for his relatives in East Germany.
  7. Franziska Felber and Lars von Törne, “Gestohlene Holzkreuze für Maueropfer: Angehörige: Aktivisten treiben ‚schmutzige Spiele‘”, Der Tagesspiegel, 4 November 2014. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that he had a half-sister, and that he drowned trying to swim from the Osthafen to Kreuzberg while border guards fired at him.
  8. “Gedenkanlage für Opfer der Mauer” (the White Crosses by the Spree and on Ebertstrasse), Gedenktafeln in Berlin. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: the date of his death, 5 October 1961, as inscribed on his White Cross.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.

Corrections

This profile was corrected on 28 September 2026. Each round of corrections is described in the corrections log:

  • : All profiles and articles cross-checked against the German originals
    • The finding that he drowned from exhaustion after the chase is now attributed to the post-mortem (German: Obduktion).
    • Corrected with whom he quarrelled: a superior (German: einem Vorgesetzten), not “his supervisor”.
    • Restored the hedges: he is said to have (German: soll) torn the epaulettes from the man's uniform, not “evidently”; being a good swimmer may have (German: mag) encouraged him to cross the Spree, not “probably”.

Further reading

Image credits

Cite this page

“Udo Düllick”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/duellick-udo/

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.