[WILT] Conrad Schumann

Reading this piece in the New York Times by Christoph Niemann:

“In the first days after it went up, the wall was a barbed wire barrier. Conrad Schumann, a 19-year-old soldier in the East German army, was standing guard on the corner of Ruppiner Strasse and Bernauer Strasse. He was taunted and insulted by passers-by from the West and, on a whim, started running and hurdled the barbed wire into the West, thus becoming the subject of one of the most dramatic photographs of the time. Only recently have I realized that I often go jogging up that very sidewalk.”

“On 15 August 1961 he found himself, aged 19, guarding the Berlin Wall, then in its third day of construction, at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße. At that stage of construction, the Berlin Wall was only a low barbed wire fence. As the people on the Western side shouted Komm rüber! (“come over”), Schumann jumped the barbed wire and was driven away at high speeds by a waiting West Berlin police car. Photographer Peter Leibing captured a photograph of his escape on film and it became a well-known image of the Cold War.” (via)