Victims of the Wall

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Siegfried Kroboth

1968–1973

Siegfried Kroboth, a five-year-old boy from Kreuzberg, fell into the Spree near the Brommy Bridge while playing on 14 May 1973 and drowned while rescuers from West Berlin were not permitted to enter the water.

Tall glass panel in a metal frame on a riverside path, printed with text and a column of small portrait photographs with names and dates, the river and buildings behind
Memorial panel on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg listing victims of the Berlin Wall, among them Siegfried Kroboth, photographed in 2012 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Siegfried Kroboth was born in West Berlin on 23 April 1968. He lived in Kreuzberg with his parents and his 13-year-old brother. Some years earlier the family had fled from the eastern part of the city to the West.

On the morning of 14 May 1973 Siegfried was playing with a friend on the Kreuzberg bank of the Spree near the Brommy Bridge, which had been destroyed in the war. They ventured as far as the quay wall, and the five-year-old slipped and fell into the water. His friend shouted for help, and a 12-year-old girl ran 200 metres to a fire alarm box and set it off at 11.55 a.m. Within minutes a West Berlin police car was there.

Siegfried kept himself above the water for a while, holding his hand over his mouth, but his strength gave out and he went under just before the Schilling Bridge. Along this stretch the whole width of the Spree belonged to East Berlin, so the police had no authority to go in. Fire brigade divers arrived at 12.07 but, not authorised to go into the water, had to wait idly on the Gröbenufer. An East German border boat came close but its crew did not respond when the police called out where the boy had fallen in and how they might recover him. His mother, who had arrived by then, could only watch in tears as the recovery was delayed.

Only after the West Berlin fire officer had contacted an East German officer at the Oberbaum Bridge was a boat with divers sent. The first diver went in at 12.45 p.m., others followed, and they searched according to the directions called from the western bank, but never answered offers of help, as they were forbidden contact with the West. At about 3.50 p.m., four hours after the accident, they brought the boy's body out of the water and took it to East Berlin. It was handed over to his parents at the Oberbaum Bridge crossing early on 16 May 1973.

It was the second such incident in six months, and it came shortly before the basic treaty between the two German states was due to take effect on 21 June 1973, placing a strain on relations between them. There were strong calls in West Berlin for an agreement allowing rapid help in future, and eight days after his death officials of the West Berlin Senate and of the East German government held preliminary talks. Yet it took until spring 1976 before rescue posts with lights visible from the watchtowers were set up along a good six kilometres of the water border in West Berlin. For his parents it was a second great loss: five years earlier, to the day, their 21-year-old daughter had been murdered in East Berlin.

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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. Every fact in it is taken from source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references.

  1. Udo Baron, “Siegfried Kroboth”, 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 panel on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg listing victims of the Berlin Wall, among them Siegfried Kroboth, photographed in 2012. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Siegfried Kroboth”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/kroboth-siegfried/

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.