Bernd Lünser

Bernd Lünser was born in Berlin on 11 March 1939. After his parents divorced he grew up with his mother in Friedrichshain, while his father lived in West Berlin. He finished secondary school at 18, trained as a bricklayer with an East Berlin firm, and in the winter semester of 1959/60 began studying at the State Engineering School for Building in Berlin-Neukölln. He hoped to become a civil engineer, and his teachers and fellow students regarded him as unusually gifted and well liked. Police and press reports say nothing about why he chose to study in the West; it seems likely that, as for many young people who commuted from the East to western colleges, rejection of the East German education system played a part.

When the Wall went up, he was on semester break and suddenly cut off from his college, along with hundreds of other students from the East. According to his father, he was determined to finish his studies and searched hard for a way to the West before the new semester began in October. His hopes of obtaining a pass or help with an escape came to nothing.

The whole width of Bernauer Strasse belonged to the western district of Wedding, but the houses on its south side stood on East Berlin territory. On the evening of 4 October 1961 he climbed onto a roof on Swinemünder Strasse, planning to cross the rooftops to the corner building on Bernauer Strasse and lower himself down its front on a clothes line. Two border guards discovered him. As they chased him he shouted down to passers-by in the West, calling for help and saying that he wanted to jump. The passers-by alerted a West Berlin police patrol.

Meanwhile the first shots were fired on the East Berlin side, and a short time later firemen had a rescue net ready below. On the roof of Bernauer Strasse 44 he struggled with one of his pursuers, and both slid towards the edge. He broke free and jumped, but landed a few metres from the net and died immediately. During the incident bullets reached the western side and West Berlin police fired back, the first time this had happened since the Wall was built; the East German policeman who had grappled with him was hit in the thigh.

East Berlin police and Stasi reports accused the West Berlin police of opening fire although no shots had been fired westwards from the East, and the East German interior minister, in protest notes to the western city commandant and the Senate, called the young man a criminal. The West Berlin police said they had fired only once people on their side were endangered, and a spokesman for the U.S. State Department backed their view that they had been forced to defend themselves. Proceedings opened in 1990 against the border guards involved could not establish exactly how the exchange of fire had unfolded, and the only defendant was acquitted. The investigations did, however, finally disprove the long-held belief, based on West Berlin eyewitness accounts, that a second fugitive had been on the roof and had also died.

Only in West Berlin was his death publicly remembered. Many people brought flowers to the spot, and students who had known him put up a wooden cross. He was buried on 11 October 1961 in the cemetery on Bergstrasse in Steglitz. The East Berlin authorities refused to let his mother attend; a telegram from her was read aloud at the graveside.

Read more

• Who Were the First Victims of the Berlin Wall?
• Who Died at the Berlin Wall on Bernauer Strasse?

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

• Ida Siekmann 22 August 1961
• Rudolf Urban 17 September 1961
• Olga Segler 26 September 1961
• Ernst Mundt 4 September 1962
• Otfried Reck 27 November 1962
• Egon Schultz 5 October 1964
• Heinz Cyrus 11 November 1965
• Dieter Brandes 11 January 1966
• Leo Lis 20 September 1969

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. Christine Brecht, “Bernd Lünser”, 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

• Wikipedia (Deutsch)

Image credits

• Portrait of Bernd Lünser in the Window of Remembrance, Bernauer Strasse. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
• Memorial plaque for Bernd Lünser at Bernauer Strasse 44, Berlin-Mitte. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
• Memorial stele for Bernd Lünser, Bernauer Strasse 44. Brewer Bob, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
• Grave of Bernd Lünser, Friedhof Steglitz. Georg Longino, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Bernd Lünser”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/luenser-bernd/

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.