Victims of the Wall

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Andreas Senk

1960–1966

Andreas Senk, a six-year-old boy, was pushed into the Spree by a playmate near the Oberbaum Bridge on 13 September 1966, where the whole river belonged to East Berlin; he was not recovered for hours and was declared dead in hospital.

Tall glass panel in a steel frame with text and a column of small portrait photographs with names and dates, in front of the river Spree
Memorial panel on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg with the names, dates and photographs of victims of the Berlin Wall, including Andreas Senk, photographed in 2012 Photo: OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Andreas Senk was born in 1960, the only son of his mother, Renate Senk, who was 25 years old in 1966.

On the morning of 13 September 1966, a hazy late-summer day, sometime between 10 and 12 o'clock, a playmate of his own age pushed the six-year-old into the Spree at the Gröbenufer in Kreuzberg and ran off in fright. Although Andreas fell from the western bank, the whole width of the river here belonged to the Soviet sector, so he fell into East Berlin waters.

The guards in the watchtower on the Oberbaum Bridge, about 200 metres away, apparently either did not notice or did not take it seriously as a border violation, and the same was true of the East German boats patrolling mid-river. For hours no one tried to save him or bring him out of the water. According to a chief fire inspector's later report, when West Berlin firemen arrived, the soldiers on a patrol boat were called to and told that the firemen needed to search there; a soldier answered that they should not come too far out into the water. The guards stood on deck with their machine pistols ready and otherwise did nothing, and they did not help to find the boy. Only at about 2 p.m. did a border boat register four West Berlin fire engines; according to the East Berlin city command's daily report, firemen then searched the river from the western bank with long poles, and at 2.30 p.m. a child of about five was recovered and taken away on the western side. Andreas was taken to the Bethanien Hospital, where he was declared dead.

The next day a West Berlin newspaper reported that the boy had died before the eyes of the border police, and a spokesman for the West Berlin Senate accused the patrol boat crew of not only hindering but preventing the recovery. Two days after the accident, once the firemen had been questioned, that accusation was toned down. It is not known whether the guards ever noticed that he had fallen; the files say nothing of it.

The late alarm to the fire brigade had nothing to do with politics, and as Der Tagesspiegel wrote at the time, he could only have survived if he had been brought out within about eight minutes. But the chance of a quick rescue at this spot was very small because of the border: as a commentator wrote in Der Tagesspiegel, there were no passers-by at the death strip who could have become rescuers, and anyone jumping into East Berlin waters would have had to reckon with being shot. Four more children fell into the Spree at the Gröbenufer and died between 1972 and 1975. Only on 29 October 1975 was an agreement reached, and from the spring of 1976 illuminated rescue posts stood along a good six kilometres of the water border on the West Berlin side.

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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 from the biography in source 1, which also gives the full account with archival references. Facts taken from other sources are listed below with what they support.

  1. Martin Ahrends, “Andreas Senk”, biography in Chronik der Mauer, Federal Agency for Civic Education, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam and Deutschlandradio. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online. The biography from which this profile was written, and the source of the dates and place of death.
  2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. Read online.
  3. West Berlin police, Ereignismeldung of 14 September 1966, item 5, “Tödlicher Unfall beim Spielen” (Polizeihistorische Sammlung, Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin), published by Chronik der Mauer as “Andreas Senk: Ereignismeldung der West-Berliner Polizei”. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that a playmate pushed him into the Spree at the Gröbenufer that morning, that the East German boats gave no help, and that firemen recovered him at 2.30 p.m.
  4. National People's Army, East Berlin city command (NVA/Stadtkommandantur Berlin), Operative Tagesmeldung Nr. T 256/66 for 13 September 1966, 14 September 1966 (BArch, VA-07/6037, Bl. 129), published by Chronik der Mauer as “Andreas Senk: Tagesmeldung der DDR-Grenztruppen”. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: the East German record of the four fire engines shortly before 2 p.m., the search with long poles and the recovery of a child at 2.30 p.m.
  5. Uwe Rada, “Kreuzberger Opfer der Berliner Mauer: Fünf tote Kinder zuviel”, taz, 8 November 2024. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: that a playmate of his own age pushed him in, the B.Z. headline of the next day, and the Tagesspiegel's eight-minute estimate and commentary.
  6. Exchange of letters between the Berlin Senate and the GDR government on rescue measures in accidents at the Berlin sector border, 29 October 1975, with the Senate's and the Allied Kommandatura's statements (Bundesministerium für innerdeutsche Beziehungen, Zehn Jahre Deutschlandpolitik, Bonn 1980, pp. 454–460), published by Chronik der Mauer. Accessed 5 October 2026. Read online. Source for: the arrangement of 29 October 1975 and the rescue posts with light signals on the West Berlin bank.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

Corrections

This profile was corrected on 28 and 29 September and 3 and 5 October 2026. Each round of corrections is described in the corrections log:

Further reading

Image credits

  • Memorial panel on the May-Ayim-Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg with the names, dates and photographs of victims of the Berlin Wall, including Andreas Senk, photographed in 2012. OTFW, Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Cite this page

“Andreas Senk”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/senk-andreas/

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.