Egon Schultz and Tunnel 57 — Berlinfographics

01Bernauer Straße to Strelitzer Straße, 1963–64

The most successful escape tunnel in Berlin ran 145 metres under the border

Wolfgang Fuchs and his friends dug two tunnels from the cellar of a closed bakery at Bernauer Straße 97, in West Berlin, half a year of work each, in 1963 and 1964. Their first tunnel carried 3 women out on the night of 7/8 January 1964. The Stasi found it the next day and wrecked it with a grenade.

The second, dug about 5 metres beside the first, came up in an outhouse in the courtyard of Strelitzer Straße 55, in East Berlin. In the nights between 3 and 5 October 1964, 57 men, women and children came through it. The plaque at Bernauer Straße calls it the most successful escape tunnel in Berlin.

A line of steel plates crossing a lawn towards apartment blocks; the nearest reads ‘Fluchttunnel, Tunnel 57, 1964’. — The line of Tunnel 57 marked in steel plates at the Berlin Wall Memorial, Bernauer Straße, 2011.Photo: N-Lange.de, 2011. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Tunnel 57 to scale: length and depth on one ruler

The depth is 10 m on the Bernauer Straße plaque and 11 m in the Chronik der Mauer, so the tunnel is drawn as a band across that range; the band is not the tunnel’s height, which is not recorded. Where the Wall stood above it is not recorded either and is not drawn. The GDR’s listening tunnel ran across the line afterwards; only its depth is recorded, so it is shown on the depth ruler.

Rusted steel plates in a line across bright green grass, the nearest lettered ‘Fluchttunnel, Tunnel 57, 1964’, a white wall behind. — The Tunnel 57 plates in 2025, running from the street towards the old death strip.Photo: Aagnverglaser, 2025. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

02Strelitzer Straße 55, 5 October 1964

One death, two records: what the GDR said, and what it knew

Egon Schultz was born in Pomerania on 4 January 1943 and grew up near Rostock, where he became a teacher. Called up in 1963, he was a sergeant and group leader in Border Regiment 34 in Berlin-Mitte. On the night of 4 October 1964 he was in reserve at the Arkonaplatz command post.

A little after midnight he was sent to Strelitzer Straße 55 to detain “suspicious persons”. Nobody told the soldiers it was an escape. What happened in the courtyard in the next minutes, and what the state said about it until the Wall fell, is the rest of this story.

Black-and-white head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man in a peaked military cap and uniform, looking to the side. — GDR press photoEgon Schultz in border-troop uniform. The GDR press agency released this portrait on 5 October 1964 with the defence ministry’s statement blaming “agents”.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-C1005-0010-001 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Two records, one scale of years

what the GDR saidwhat it knew, in secretWest Berlin, then united Berlin

One linear scale of years. A dated event is a thin mark at its day; an event known only to the month or the year is drawn as wide as that month or year.

View from above over a wide street and a lawn crossed by rows of steel rods, apartment buildings behind, one with a large historic photograph on its gable. — Bernauer Straße at the corner of Strelitzer Straße, 2016. The tunnel ran from a cellar on the West Berlin side of Bernauer Straße, under the border strip, to a courtyard on Strelitzer Straße.Photo: Fridolin freudenfett, 2016. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

5 October 1964, about 0:15–0:30

A comrade’s bullets

Two men the escape helpers had taken for refugees were from the Stasi, and came back with border soldiers. Christian Zobel, a helper, fired first; his bullet lodged in Schultz’s lung. The fatal shots came from a border soldier’s Kalashnikov, fired on a Stasi officer’s order.

6 October 1964

“Murdered by West Berlin bandits”

Erich Mielke carried the Stasi’s report to Ulbricht, Honecker and Stoph in person. It said Schultz was “von Westberliner Banditen ermordet”, murdered by West Berlin bandits. The same report noted that a soldier had fired nine rounds into the courtyard “without making out the target”.

From October 1964

What the GDR knew was kept top secret

East Berlin’s investigators established that the fatal shots came from a comrade’s weapon. The results were placed under the highest secrecy. Those responsible in the GDR, says the plaque at the house today, knew it from the start.

Black-and-white photograph: a soldier with a rifle and an officer stand guard beside a wreath and a plaque on a house front, while civilians and officers stand facing it. — A ceremony for Egon Schultz at the GDR plaque, 13 August 1971, the tenth anniversary of the Wall. The press agency’s caption repeats the official story that “West Berlin agents” killed him.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-K0813-0020 / Brüggmann, Eva / CC-BY-SA 3.0

1964–1977

A martyr with more than 100 namesakes

At the funeral Honecker blamed the West. A plaque went up at Strelitzer Straße 55 on 4 January 1965, and in 1966 the street became Egon-Schultz-Straße. Schools, collectives and a youth hotel took his name: more than 100 in the end.

November 1965

By November 1965 the truth was in print in West Berlin

A defector’s account reached the Berliner Morgenpost: “Vopo Schultz von seinen Kameraden erschossen”, shot by his comrades. The same month, West Berlin prosecutors closed their case against the escape helpers. In the East, the official story did not change.

Two astronauts in a cramped laboratory module: one floats upside down, the other works at an instrument panel. — Reinhard Furrer (left, upside down) and Wubbo Ockels at work on the D1 Spacelab mission, October 1985. Twenty-one years earlier Furrer was one of the escape helpers in the courtyard.Photo: DLR, 1985. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0.

1991–1999

After the Wall, the courts

The street got its old name back on 1 December 1991. In 1992 prosecutors found that the soldier who fired the fatal shots had acted in self-defence, on orders. In May 1994 a private murder charge named the helper Reinhard Furrer, and Schultz’s mother joined it. After Furrer died in 1995 it turned to the other helpers, and was dropped in 1999.

A bronze plaque with raised lettering naming Egon Schultz. — The plaque of 2004 at Strelitzer Straße 55. It says the fatal shots came from a comrade’s weapon, and that those responsible in the GDR knew it from the start.Photo: OTFW, Berlin, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.

2004

A second plaque on the same house

Escape helpers and a friend of Schultz put up a new plaque at Strelitzer Straße 55. It calls him a victim of the Wall, and says the fatal shots came from a comrade’s weapon.

03Stasi reports 847a/64 and 847b/64

The report Mielke delivered recorded the gunfire, and blamed the West

The Stasi’s evaluation office wrote the night up twice. A first version, dated 5 October 1964, was crossed out on every page, and the dispatch book shows it was never sent. The second, dated 6 October 1964, went to three of the most powerful men in the state. Both are now in the Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv, and both mention the submachine-gun fire.

Crossed out · never sent

Info Nr. 847a/645 October 1964

Tod eines Angehörigen der NVA (1. Fassung)

„neun Schüsse aus MPi abgegeben“

“nine shots fired from a submachine gun”

Distribution: MfS file copy only. No external recipient recorded.

Delivered by Mielke in person

Info Nr. 847b/646 October 1964

Tod eines Angehörigen der NVA (2. Fassung)

„… von Westberliner Banditen ermordet.“

“… murdered by West Berlin bandits.”

„… ohne jedoch das Ziel auszumachen, neun Schuss aus der MPi in das Hofgelände abgegeben.“

“… without making out the target, fired nine rounds from the submachine gun into the courtyard.”

To: Ulbricht · Honecker · Stoph

Die tödlichen Schüsse auf Schultz wurden allerdings von einem anderen Grenzsoldaten abgegeben.“The fatal shots at Schultz were, however, fired by another border soldier.” The Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv’s footnote to both versions.

04East Berlin, 1965–1991

A street, schools and a hotel carried the name of a death the state misreported

The plaque of 1965 at Strelitzer Straße 55 was the first. The street itself was Egon-Schultz-Straße from 1966 until 1 December 1991. The school in Rostock where he had taught took his name on the day of his funeral, and by the end more than 100 collectives, schools and institutions were named after him.

Black-and-white photograph of a modern hotel building with its name in large letters along the roof, young people and a bus in front. — GDR press photoThe Jugendtouristenhotel “Egon Schultz” in East Berlin, September 1989, one of the institutions named after him.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1989-0907-021 / Settnik, Bernd / CC-BY-SA 3.0

A dark metal plaque on a wall with capital letters: ‘Am 5. Oktober 1964 wurde der Lehrer Unteroffizier Egon Schultz … von Westberliner Agenten meuchlings ermordet’. — A GDR-era plaque at Brunnenstraße 141, photographed in 2023. It says that Egon Schultz was “treacherously murdered by West Berlin agents”.Photo: Lukas Beck, 2023. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.

Their wording was the state’s. One GDR-era plaque still says he was “treacherously murdered by West Berlin agents”. The “agents” it meant were escape helpers from West Berlin. One of them, Reinhard Furrer, flew in space on the D1 mission in October 1985.

Two plaques for one death. One says murdered by West Berlin agents. The other says a comrade’s weapon, and that the GDR knew from the start.

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The GDR said West Berlin agents killed Egon Schultz. A comrade fired the fatal shots, and the state knew it.