# Dietmar Schulz (1939–1963)

> Dietmar Schulz, a 24-year-old from Pankow, was found fatally injured on the S-Bahn tracks north of Bornholmer Strasse station on 25 November 1963, apparently while trying to reach Wedding; the reports on how the accident happened contradict each other.

- Born: 21 October 1939
- Died: 25 November 1963
- Age at death: 24
- Cause of death: Fatal fall or accident
- Circumstances: Died trying to escape
- Place and circumstances as recorded: On the S-Bahn tracks north of the Bornholmer Strasse station; At the sector border between Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg and Berlin-Wedding
- Map position (approximate): 52.56089, 13.39693
- Area: inner-city border between East and West Berlin
- Web page: https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/schulz-dietmar/

## Story

Dietmar Schulz was born on 21 October 1939 and lived with his fiancée in a flat on Gaillardstrasse in Pankow, a few minutes from the sector border along the S-Bahn tracks between Bornholmer Strasse and Wollankstrasse stations. He is said to have been thinking about leaving for a long time. In April 1963 he told a young West German he met in an East Berlin bar that he rejected the SED regime and meant to go West one day. His fiancée also suspected that he wanted to leave; she believed he feared being called up into the National People's Army.

Bornholmer Strasse station had been closed when the Wall was built, and West Berlin trains passed through it without stopping. The East Berlin line ran parallel on a new route inside a 100-metre prohibited zone, created in June 1963 officially to protect the border but in practice to stop people before they reached the barriers.

At around 7 p.m. on 25 November 1963 he left the flat; nothing suggested he meant to try that evening. Not entirely sober, he got onto the railway land in the border area apparently unnoticed. Later that evening border soldiers found him, unconscious and critically injured, on the S-Bahn land north of Bornholmer Strasse station. He had apparently been struck by a train while trying to cross the tracks towards Wedding, though the reports on how he entered the zone and how the accident happened disagree. He was taken to the People's Police Hospital, where he died a short time later.

According to one report from the East Berlin command, at 9:20 p.m. a man leapt from an S-Bahn train while it was moving, south of Maximilianstrasse. The transport police concluded instead that he had walked from home to the embankment and been run over in unknown circumstances; their report made no mention of an escape and recorded a personal accident.

His fiancée did not believe it was an accident and was convinced he had been shot. After his funeral in East Berlin on 2 December 1963 she contacted the West German he had met, who passed on what she knew. The Central Registry Office in Salzgitter opened an inquiry in April 1964, and the Berlin public prosecutor's office later reopened the case once the East German archives had been opened, but the suspicion that he had been shot could not be confirmed.

## Sources

1. Christine Brecht, “Dietmar Schulz”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/en/victims/180515/schulz-dietmar
2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/todesopfer/171414/schulz-dietmar
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.
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. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/2017_08_08_140%20Victims_at_the_Wall_List_Internet_engl_FINAL.pdf
5. Hans-Hermann Hertle and Maria Nooke, “The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989: Findings of a Research Project”, August 2017. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/system/files/dokument_pdf/2017_08_08_Hertle_Nooke_140_Victims_Berlin_Wall_FINAL_0.pdf

This profile is a summary written for this site; every fact in it is taken from source 1.

Cite as: “Dietmar Schulz”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/schulz-dietmar/