# Rudolf Urban (1914–1961)

> Rudolf Urban, a 47-year-old driver, was injured on 19 August 1961 escaping by rope from his home at Bernauer Strasse 1; he caught pneumonia in a West Berlin hospital and died there on 17 September 1961.

- Born: 6 June 1914
- Died: 17 September 1961
- Age at death: 47
- Cause of death: Fatal fall or accident
- Circumstances: Died trying to escape
- Place and circumstances as recorded: While fleeing from his apartment on Bernauer Strasse; At the sector border between Berlin-Mitte and Berlin-Wedding
- Map position (approximate): 52.53612, 13.39138
- Area: inner-city border between East and West Berlin
- Web page: https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/urban-rudolf/

## Story

Rudolf Urban was born on 6 June 1914 in the four-storey apartment building at Bernauer Strasse 1, near the Reconciliation Church, and was living there with his wife when the Wall was built. He worked as a driver. The buildings on the southern side of the street belonged to the East Berlin district of Mitte, yet their front doors opened onto a pavement that was part of West Berlin.

After the border was sealed on 13 August 1961, many people tried to flee to West Berlin from these houses, and the authorities responded by sealing entrances and windows and posting armed guards in the stairwells. His wife recalled in a 1980 interview that she had wanted to leave from the first day, but he hesitated: he did not want to give up what he had worked for over many years, and he insisted he had done nothing wrong. On the evening of 18 August the couple heard the building's front door onto the West Berlin pavement being nailed shut. According to his wife, that changed his mind, and he said that now they would go.

The next day, Saturday 19 August 1961, they fixed a rope to their window frame and let themselves down one after the other to Bernauer Strasse. His wife later said that, out of consideration for their neighbours, they could not take the safer route through a ground-floor window: with guards checking the stairwell, anyone climbing out that way would have exposed the residents to suspicion of helping an escape. Both slipped and injured their hands and feet, and they were taken to the nearby Lazarus Hospital. Two former nurses later recalled that both were in a state of severe shock; he was wearing several suits, one over another, evidently because he did not want to leave them behind in his East Berlin flat.

He had crushed his heel bone and remained in hospital. There he developed pneumonia, and he died at the Lazarus Hospital on 17 September 1961, aged 47. He was buried in the Dorotheen Cemetery on Liesenstrasse in Wedding. At first the West Berlin public knew nothing of his escape and his weeks in hospital; only after his death did the authorities and press draw attention to his fate.

In his memory, the borough of Wedding later put up a wooden memorial with barbed wire at the site of the accident at Bernauer Strasse 1; according to newspaper reports, East Berlin police insulted the workers putting it up and threw stones at them. Every year on the anniversary of the Wall's construction, memorial services were held for him and other victims of the Wall. When East Berlin crews began tearing the border houses down to the ground-floor façade in October 1965, the memorial was covered to protect it, and in 1980 the building he had fled from finally gave way to the expanded border installations.

## Sources

1. Christine Brecht, “Rudolf Urban”, 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/180482/urban-rudolf
2. German version of the same biography. Accessed 23 September 2026. https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/todesopfer/171437/urban-rudolf
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: “Rudolf Urban”, Victims of the Berlin Wall, Berlin Experiences. https://victimsofthewall.com/victims/urban-rudolf/