Born in Zschochau (now part of Jahnatal) during World War II, Schumann enlisted in the East German Volkspolizei-Bereitschaften (Paramilitary Unit of the Volkspolizei) following his 18th birthday.

The young woman apologized to her mother for not being able to visit, then motioned to Schumann: "Those [people] over there, they won't let me cross anymore."

[1] By noon, a large crowd of West Berlin demonstrators approached the wire at Schumann's post, shouting various slogans, including "Freiheit (Freedom)."

[1] Over the next four hours, construction equipment and trucks loaded with concrete posts and steel plates began to arrive and unload materials to build the wall.

The photograph, entitled Leap into Freedom, quickly became an iconic image of the Cold War and was featured at the beginning of the 1982 Disney film Night Crossing.

Even so, he continued to feel more at home in Bavaria than in his birthplace, citing old frictions with his former colleagues, and was even hesitant to visit his parents and siblings in Saxony.

[4] In May 2011, the photograph of Schumann's "leap into freedom" was inducted into the UNESCO Memory of the World programme as part of a collection of documents on the fall of the Berlin Wall.

[5][6] A sculpture called Mauerspringer ("Walljumper") by Florian and Michael Brauer and Edward Anders can be seen close to the site of the defection,[7] but has since been moved to the side of a building on Brunnenstraße, several meters south of Bernauer Straße.