Wolfgang Engels - The Man Who Drove a Tank through the Berlin Wall

During the 27 years the Berlin Wall was up, an estimated 5,000 people were able to escape from East Berlin to freedom in West Berlin. While many of these stories have the escapees attempting to escape in a discreet and quiet manner, there are some exceptions, including the story of Wolfgang Engels.

Wolfgang Engels was born in 1943 in the German city of Dusseldorf and later moved to the East part of Berlin with his mother. Being raised in a socialist household, he did not have many qualms with the Soviet Union. In fact, he could have easily escaped East Berlin when he was a soldier overseeing the initial construction the Berlin Wall 1961, but instead chose to stay.


Two years later, he changed his mind- not out of some ideological disillusionment like many other people- but out of anger against the Soviet Union's actions. In spring of 1963, Engels and some friends were planning to attend a concert in a cafe near the wall. While they were trying to find the cafe, they were falsely accused of trying to escape East Berlin and arrested. Luckily, they managed to escape prosecution due to their ingenuity and the clothes they were wearing.

While that incident created some resentment towards the government, his mother's reaction was the straw that broke the camel's back. Engels's mother, a member of the Stasi secret police, believed the authorities were correct in their actions and scolded him. Disgusted at sight of seeing someone so blindly loyal to the government, Engels made the decision to escape. “That’s what shocked me, that a person can adhere so firmly to the idea that ‘the Party is always right’,” Engels recalled.

A PSW 152, the vehicle Engels used
to drive into the Berlin Wall

Over the next few weeks, Engels befriended a group of army drivers and got them to show him how
their armored vehicle worked. Then, a few days before the German national holiday on May 1, Engels stole the vehicle and, using the large amount of military traffic at the time as cover, drove to an open field in front of the wall.

"I'm leaving for the West, who's coming?" he yelled. When no one responded, he hit the gas and drove straight into the wall. Despite his momentum, he was unable to break through, and the doors of the vehicle were still on the East Berlin side of the wall. Desperate, he got out of the car and climbed up the wall, only to get stuck in the barbed wire.

The hole Engels made when he crashed into the wall

A border patrol soldier saw Engels stuck in the barbed wire and opened fire. The first bullet shot him into his back and out his front. The next bullet barely missed - it hit the wall and the splinters of the bullet dug into his flesh.

It was around this time that West Berlin soldiers noticed the commotion and opened fire on the East Berlin guard to cover Engels. A group of men who were drinking at a nearby bar rushed out to free Engels from the barbed wire and brought him into the bar where he awoke.

"When I turned my head and saw all the Western brands of liquor on the shelf, I knew that I had made it," Engels later said, recounting the events of his escape.

Not long later, paramedics came to the bar and brought Engels to a hospital, where he spent three weeks recovering. After his recovery, he found that his mother had formally disowned him, and all attempts to contact her were blocked. It wasn't until 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin wall, that he would see her again.

Left: Wolfgang Engels at the cite of his escape, over 50 years later
Right: Engels in the hospital after his escape

Sources:

https://www.thelocal.de/20141031/wolfgang-engels-berlin-wall-25-years-daring-escape

http://abcnews.go.com/International/berlin-wall-turns-50-rebuild-barbed-wire/story?id=14298563