# Unidentified fugitive (?–1965)

> An unidentified man, thought to be about 30 years old, drowned in the Spree between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg on 19 January 1965 while trying to swim to West Berlin; his identity has never been established.

- Born: Unknown
- Died: 19 January 1965
- Cause of death: Drowned
- Circumstances: Died trying to escape
- Place and circumstances as recorded: In the Spree River; At the sector border between Berlin-Friedrichshain and Berlin-Kreuzberg
- Map position (approximate): 52.50541, 13.4382
- Area: inner-city border between East and West Berlin
- Web page: https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/unidentified-fugitive/

## Story

Nothing is known of this man's life, not even his name. Witnesses in the West judged him to be about 30 years old. He is remembered here as one of those who died at the Berlin Wall, even though his identity remains unknown.

At about 5:30 p.m. on 19 January 1965, two employees of a firm on the Kreuzberg bank of the Spree heard someone calling for help. They saw a man swimming through the icy river towards their side. Because the full width of the river there belonged to East Berlin, they were sure he was trying to escape. They called to him to swim towards them so they could pull him out, but his strength apparently gave out, and about 10 metres from the West Berlin bank he went under before their eyes. A West Berlin police report concluded that he had probably succumbed to hypothermia and that no one else was involved.

According to the same police report, the escape attempt had also been noticed on the eastern bank: border soldiers fired flares and went by boat to the spot where he had gone under, and divers were brought in, but the search was called off without success at around midnight. Reports of the East Berlin border troops also record his fatal attempt: a border soldier had spotted him while lighting up the water with a floodlight and reportedly saw him clearly and heard him call for help before he went under. With a tracking dog, investigators established that he had approached the river from a property on Mühlenstrasse and then crawled under the security fence. He had left behind a briefcase containing a shirt, magazines, an empty fountain-pen case and a sandwich wrapped in a newspaper from the Halle district dated 21 September 1964. None of it revealed who he was.

Investigations in East and West produced no further findings. Research on the case resumed in the 1990s, but the Berlin public prosecutor's office closed its preliminary investigation in 1995 without solving the case or finding new evidence. An unidentified body was recovered from the Spree on 8 July 1965; whether it was this man has so far been neither proven nor ruled out.

## Sources

1. Christine Brecht, “Unidentified fugitive”, 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/180527/unidentified-fugitive
2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/todesopfer/171393/unbekannter-fluechtling
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: “Unidentified fugitive”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/unidentified-fugitive/