Victims of the Wall

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Rainer Liebeke

1951–1986

Rainer Liebeke, a 34-year-old taxi driver and motorcycle racer from Gotha, drowned in Sacrower Lake on 3 September 1986, shortly before his 35th birthday, while swimming towards West Berlin with a friend.

Tall orange column bearing his name in a wood, next to a grey post with a portrait of a young man with long dark hair and a text panel
Memorial column for Rainer Liebeke on Kladower Straße in Sacrow, Potsdam Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rainer Liebeke lived in his home town of Gotha with his wife and their son. A trained motor mechanic, he worked as a taxi driver for the state-owned company "Kraftverkehr Erfurt". His passion was motorcycle racing: as a member of the Gotha Motor Club he rode in all the major East German races in the 50cc class, and in 1985 he became a licensed racer with the national motor sport association.

Through the sport he became friends with Dirk K. from the Eisenach district, nine years younger, whom he met in 1980. Through Dirk he got to know a West German racer and his family in 1982; the racer also helped them obtain scarce spare parts. In the years that followed the East German riders occasionally met him in Gotha, and in 1986 they holidayed together at Lake Balaton. His frustration with East Germany went back to the early 1970s, when he took a drive in a BMW belonging to a cousin visiting from the West and was fetched from work the next day by the secret police and questioned for hours. His sister said the experience changed him; from then on he felt hemmed in and kept on a tight rein.

After the holiday things went wrong. The association planned to abolish his racing class, and he broke his collarbone in a crash at the Schleizer Triangle race. His family advised him to give up racing, but no sooner was he a little better than he began rebuilding his bike for a larger class, with Dirk's help. Dirk visited him on 1 and 2 September 1986, while he was still on sick leave; Dirk's mother believes this is when they decided to flee together.

On 2 September he told his wife they were going to Karl-Marx-Stadt for spare parts. Instead they took the train to Potsdam and made their way through marsh and reeds to Sacrower Lake, whose eastern shore was border territory and which Dirk knew from his military service. They reached the lake after dark; it was about 500 metres to the far bank, and they had to be wary of the searchlights that lit up the area at irregular intervals. While the younger man swam quickly ahead, Rainer's injured collarbone probably hampered him more and more; in Potsdam he had already asked Dirk to tighten his shoulder bandage. They called softly to each other, but when Dirk reached the far bank, his friend was no longer behind him. Dirk searched for a while, then, not wanting to put himself in further danger, went on through the woods, got through the border installations and swam across the Havel to West Berlin.

A week later two schoolchildren found Rainer Liebeke's body in the lake. His wife, who said she had known nothing of any plan, reported him missing, believing he was alive and had possibly been arrested. The family learned of his death only on 19 September. She was questioned repeatedly, felt ostracised at work, and even their son was stopped at school and questioned about his parents. She was denied accident and life insurance payments. His urn was buried in Gotha on 3 October 1986, and in 1988 she and her son were allowed to move to West Germany. A photograph in the biography shows a commemorative column for him on Kladower Strasse between Sacrow and Kladow.

Panel topped by a black-and-white portrait of a smiling young man with long dark hair, followed by German and English text
Information panel with a portrait of Rainer Liebeke at his memorial in Sacrow Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Panel with a black-and-white aerial photograph of a lakeshore, marked with two symbols, above text
Panel on Rainer Liebeke's memorial column with a 1989 aerial photograph marking where his body was found in the Sacrower See Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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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, “Rainer Liebeke”, 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

Cite this page

“Rainer Liebeke”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/liebeke-rainer/

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.