Conrad Schumann leaps into
West Berlin over barbed wire on August 15, 1961
Hans Conrad Schumann (1942 – June 20, 1998) was the first and one of the most famous escapees from East Germany.
Schumann served as a soldier in the Nationale Volksarmee. After a three-month training in Dresden, he was commandeered to a non-commissioned officers' college in Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin.
On August 15, 1961, at the age of 19, he was guarding the
Berlin Wall, then in its third day of construction, at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße. The Wall was at that stage no more than a low barbed-wire fence. Seizing the opportunity, he jumped over the barbed wire, and was then taken away from the border at high speed in a police car. His escape was captured on film by photographer Peter Leibing , and the image (shown here) became one of the most famous images of the Cold War.
He was later permitted to travel from West Berlin to the main territory of West Germany, where he settled in Bavaria. He met his wife Kunigunde in the town of Günzburg.
After the Berlin Wall was opened, he said, "Only since November 9, 1989 [the date of its opening] have I felt truly free". However, he continued to feel more at home in Bavaria than in his birthplace, citing old hurts with his former colleagues, and hesitated even to visit his parents and brothers and sisters in Saxony. On June 20, 1998, suffering from depression, he hanged himself in the town of Kipfenberg in Oberbayern.