Victims of the Wall

All 140 people

Wolf-Olaf Muszynski

1947–1963

Wolf-Olaf Muszynski, a 16-year-old from Friedrichshain, went missing in February 1963; his body was found on 1 April 1963 on the West Berlin bank of the Spree near the Oberbaum Bridge. He had drowned, apparently while trying to escape.

Glass memorial panel with a column of names, dates and small portrait photographs, standing on a riverside promenade with the river and buildings behind it
Memorial panel for the victims of the Berlin Wall on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg, listing Wolf-Olaf Muszynski among others, photographed in 2012 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wolf-Olaf Muszynski was born on 1 February 1947 and lived in the East Berlin district of Friedrichshain. Little more is known about his life. His grandmother, who lived in West Berlin, later told police that he had in the past spoken of wanting to leave the East. She described him as a slim boy with mid-blond hair and blue eyes, about 177 centimetres tall, who looked about 18.

He was reported missing from 6 February 1963. On 18 March the East Berlin police headquarters took the unusual step of asking the western side whether the boy had turned up there as a refugee. Searches at the Marienfelde refugee centre and elsewhere in West Berlin found no trace of him.

On the morning of 1 April 1963, residents found his body on the West Berlin bank of the Spree, not far from the Oberbaum Bridge. According to the West Berlin police, as the 'Tagesspiegel' reported the next day, he could be identified at once because his identity papers had been fastened to his back beneath his shirt; the paper added that the body showed no external injuries but that he appeared to have drowned some time before. Everything indicated that he had drowned while trying to escape, without being noticed by the border guards.

An autopsy found that neither illness nor violence had caused his death and that he had drowned, and the police closed the case. When it was reopened in the 1990s, these findings were confirmed, but nothing further came to light about his life or about why he decided to flee.

Read more

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. Christine Brecht, “Wolf-Olaf Muszynski”, 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 for the victims of the Berlin Wall on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg, listing Wolf-Olaf Muszynski among others, photographed in 2012. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Wolf-Olaf Muszynski”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/muszynski-wolf-olaf/

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.