Berlin: Under the Wall

In their unceasing attempts to escape to freedom, East Berliners have often taken the underground route. But last week the world learned of the biggest, most elaborate tunnel yet built beneath the hated Wall. Through it. a record 59 refugees reached the West. The 413-ft. tunnel was dug in 18 weeks by two dozen German and foreign college students who began the job last May in a cellar in the working- class district of Wedding.

Working in eight-and twelve-hour shifts, the students made a 4-ft. opening in the side of the cellar, rigged up a block and tackle to haul out the damp sandy soil on which most of Berlin is built, and installed a ventilation system made up of lengths of stovepipe. To get the job done, the students had to sacrifice one college semester and raise about $3,750, which went for such equipment as a Volkswagen bus for removing earth, an electric drill, cables, field telephones, miners’ lamps and tools.

Progressive Songs. Sagging earth above the tunnel caused a break in a water line, but West Berlin firemen came to the rescue with a pump to drain the tunnel. A second flooding occurred at the 300-ft. mark, well inside East Berlin, when a water pipe burst near the tunnel. Fortunately, the East German repairmen who fixed the pipe did not notice the excavation below. As digging was resumed, the molelike students could hear the Communist loudspeakers on the Wall above them blaring out “progressive workers’ ” songs.

By sheer luck, the tunnel came out in an abandoned cellar in East Berlin. Not knowing what to expect, the first student to crawl out carried a submachine gun. The usual manner of contacting prospective escapees was practiced: the student-diggers drew up a list of friends in East Berlin and then someone with a West German or foreign passport went legally through the Wall, looked up the people on the list and verbally gave the necessary instructions.

Frustrated Gropos. Two weeks ago, the first four refugees went through to freedom. Owing to a steady seepage from underground springs, the last of the 59 to cross had to wade through water up to their armpits. When pumps could not cope with the flood, the tunnel was regretfully closed, and East Germans were publicly warned to avoid its use. Lamented one student-worker: “It was the most beautiful tunnel there ever was.” Other Western groups are hard at work on four other tunnels in the same general area, but some refugees would not wait: in a single night, eleven East Germans—including two Gropos with their arms and a police dog —crossed over.

The Communist Gropos guarding the Wall last week took out their frustration on a frolicsome dachshund and a sheep dog who strayed through the wire and began sniffing about in the death strip on the East Berlin side of the Wall. Presumably deciding the dogs were Western spies, the Gropos opened fire. Badly wounded, the sheep dog managed to struggle back to West Berlin. The dachshund lay writhing at the foot of the Wall until a Gropo finally beat it to death with a shovel.