By 1964 dissent against the Berlin Wall is growing. People attempting to cross over the Berlin Wall are shot on site. People on both sides of the divide are outraged by the growing death count. Resistance movements are growing and 23 year-old law student, Klaus Von Keussler, is a key player in one such group. He and his compatriots are hatching an audacious plan. They are West Berliners determined to rescue their East Berliners from the prison-like East German state. Getting over the wall is too risky, but they want to go under it…
In the cellar of a bakery on Bernauer Strasse (conveniently close to the border) they begin work on an extraordinary excavation project. They first build a 12 metre deep vertical shaft and the from the bottom embark on the extraordinary feat of digging a 145 metre tunnel under the Berlin Wall and into East Berlin. In this iconic photograph, Klaus is captured hauling up earth in a bucket from the mouth of the shaft.
For 6 months Klaus and his friends toil – often completely by hand - to gradually dig the 145 metre tunnel. It emerges in an outhouse behind an apartment building on Strelitzer Strasse in East Berlin.
Over 2 nights in October 1964, 57 East Berliners made their way into the building and down into the tunnel. Crawling on their hands and knees they were able to pass under the wall and up into the bakery cellar – they had made it to the freedom of the West. It is believed to be the largest mass escape in the history of the Wall.
Because 57 people escaped it became known as Tunnel 57.
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