Berlin: They Keep Coming

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Two East German brothers, aged 19 and 21, crept silently into a grain field at the East-West border one recent sum mer afternoon and flattened themselves amidst the billowing green stalks. Looming above them were two 30-ft.-high wooden guard towers manned by grim East German Grepos toting machine pistols, and between the towers stretched three rows of ugly barbed wire.

For six hours the brothers lay still. Then, just before 7 p.m., West Berliners strolling on the other side of the field stopped in their tracks, aghast, as they saw the two young men rise to make their break. Wearing heavy gloves to protect their hands, the brothers vaulted one row of wire, then another, finally the third. Luckily, the guards' backs were turned. Only one shot was fired—and that by a young West Berlin woman who excitedly snapped her camera (see cut) just as the two successfully hurdled the final barrier to freedom in the West.