Tunnel 57

Some of the organisers of the tunnel – the so-called couriers – had made contact with 120 people in East Berlin and planned for their escape.

These couriers would bring them to the apartment building at 55 Strelitzer Straße and into the courtyard, where Reinhard Furrer would show them to the tunnel entrance in the disused outhouse.

The SED, the GDR's dictatorial ruling communist party, spread this rumor and made a martyr out of Schultz, the victim of a ruthless enemy of the border [Grenzverletzer].

[1] A memorial plaque on the site today commemorates both the successful escape and Schultz's death as a victim of the Berlin Wall.

Most stayed away from risky flight operations, with Reinhard Furrer continuing his physics degree at the Freie University and going on to become an astronaut.

Location marker on the Berlin Wall Memorial , with the Bernauer Straße in the background
Commemorative plaque on the house at Strelitzer Straße 55, in Berlin-Mitte