(+106 rating, 128 votes)
Loading ...East German border guard Conrad Schumann leaps into the French Sector of West Berlin over barbed wire on August 15, 1961.
Born in Leutewitz near Riesa, Schumann served as a soldier in the East German Bereitschaftspolizei. After three months’ training in Dresden, he was posted to a non-commissioned officers’ college in Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin.
On 15 August 1961 he found himself, aged 19, guarding the Berlin Wall, then in its third day of construction, at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße. At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed wire fence. As the people on the Western side shouted Komm rüber! (“come over”), Schumann jumped the barbed wire and was driven away at high speeds by a waiting West Berlin police car. Photographer Peter Leibing captured a photograph of his escape on film and it became a well-known image of the Cold War.
![Conrad Schumann [1961]](http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/berlinxwall.jpg)
Photographer: Peter Leibing
Source: wikipedia
What propit is it to a man if he gain the whole world and loses his own soul?
runnaway son be free
If anyone can tell me a website that goes more into detail about the public reaction back then and the media reaction let me know because every site i find says the same thing and sucks including this website.
that’s cool. i would fall on my…
thats terrible that he killed himself
this photo was taken on my birthday though
Does anyone here know where, on the internet, this poster is sold? I have been looking everywhere and cannot find it. I went to Berlin last year, saw it in some stores and stupidly, did not buy it. If you know it is greatly appreciated.
After this event Conrad Schumann’s life was filled with paranoia, though.
“On 20 June 1998, suffering from depression, he hanged himself in his orchard near the town of Kipfenberg in Oberbayern.” (Wikipedia)
This moment was also captured on motion pictures but I cannot remember where the footage came from.
Freedom