Victims of the Wall

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Klaus Kratzel

1940–1965

Klaus Kratzel, a 25-year-old bricklayer and father of two, died on 8 August 1965 in an S-Bahn tunnel north of Bornholmer Strasse station, apparently hit by a train while trying to rejoin his family in West Berlin.

Klaus Kratzel was born in Berlin on 3 March 1940 and grew up with four siblings in the East Berlin district of Weissensee. After school he trained and worked as a bricklayer. At 18 he met his future wife at a fair in Berlin-Stralau, and they married in April 1961, after the birth of their first daughter.

When the Wall was built, his father-in-law, a Social Democrat, feared that political dissenters and their families would be treated more harshly and urged the family to flee. On 18 August 1961 Klaus Kratzel, his wife, their daughter and his in-laws got through the barriers, leaving everything they owned behind. After a first period in various refugee camps and a year of hardship they found a flat of their own, and a second daughter was born. His wife remembered him as a good father who liked caring for the children.

He found it hard to resist the temptations of Western consumer goods, and in January 1965 he once again ran into financial difficulties. After an argument with his wife he left, went to the Friedrichstrasse crossing and asked to return to East Germany. He passed through a reception camp in Blankenfelde and moved back in with his mother. Before long he regretted it. In guarded letters to his in-laws, in which he avoided the word "Flucht" (escape) and wrote instead, in roundabout terms, that he would soon be moving flat, he let them know he wanted to come back. In early August 1965 he wrote that he would come only if he had a good chance.

On 8 August 1965, at around 11.30 p.m., Klaus Kratzel, aged 25, was found dead in an S-Bahn tunnel north of the disused Bornholmer Strasse station. The tunnel lay in the border area, and trains between Schönhauser Allee and Pankow ran through it regularly. Everything pointed to his having been hit by a train while trying to cross the tracks towards Wedding; he had drunk alcohol to find his courage. The border troops' investigation found no clue as to how he had entered the area unseen. A possible link to another escape in the same area that night could not be confirmed.

The findings were classified as military secrets. His mother was told only that he had died in an accident on the tracks; she was not told where, and was not allowed to see his body. He was buried in East Berlin on 18 August 1965. The secrecy left his family distrustful, and for years there were rumours among them that he had been shot at the Wall. After 1990, the opening of the East German archives and the investigations of the Berlin public prosecutor's office ruled this out.

Also died on the sector border between Berlin-Pankow and Berlin-Wedding

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, “Klaus Kratzel”, 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. Report of the East German border troops (Grenzregiment 31) on the border breach of 8 August 1965, excerpt (BArch, VA-07/16934, Bl. 76-81), transcribed in Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: the time and place where he was found, his date of birth, the assumed direction towards Grüntaler Strasse, and the possible link with another escape that night.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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 and 5 October 2026. Each round of corrections is described in the corrections log:

Further reading

Cite this page

“Klaus Kratzel”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/kratzel-klaus/

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.