Evi crouches: Author interview with Evi Rudolph.
Her stomach falls: Author interview with Ellen Sesta.
People sit: The Tunnel, NBC, broadcast 10 December 1962.
Buggies are now piling up: Piers Anderton letter to Reuven Frank, 24 July 1988 in Reuven Frank Papers.
Ellen sits uncomfortably: Author interview with Ellen Sesta.
Then Claus hears: Interview with Claus and Inge Stürmer in Der Tunnel, dir. Marcus Vetter, 1999.
Later she’ll say: Interview with Inge Stürmer in Der Tunnel, dir. Marcus Vetter, 1999.
Thinks of his father: Author interview with Joachim Rudolph.
CHAPTER 58
Three days after: BStU / MfS, Stasi report from meeting with Contact Person ‘Walter’, 17 September 1962, 0228.
CHAPTER 59
Then they seal off: Stasi fax to Köpenick People’s Police Station, 25 September 1962, BStU / MfS, 0253.
CHAPTER 60
Reuven Frank kneels: Frank, Out of Thin Air 199, and Frank, ‘The Making of the Tunnel’.
Wandered around the border: The Tunnel, NBC, broadcast 10 December 1962.
CHAPTER 61
The Stasi agent: Stasi report, 18 September 1962, BStU / MfS 000015.
CHAPTER 62
‘The flight from’: Stasi report BStU / MfS, 2743 / 69 189.
‘Twenty-nine’: New York Times, 18 September 1962.
Then, at eight: Stasi tunnel report from 26 September 1962, BStU / MfS, 1962 000004.
In a final: Stasi tunnel report from 19 October 1962, BStU / MfS, 000035.
CHAPTER 63
At a restaurant: The Tunnel, NBC, broadcast 10 December 1962.
He’d picked them up: Author interview with Joachim Rudolph.
Twenty-one: Piers Anderton in The Tunnel, NBC, broadcast 10 December 1962.
CHAPTER 64
Rudolf’s interrogator starts: Stasi report on the interrogation of Rudolf Gottlieb, 27 September 1962, MfS / BStU 0265.
CHAPTER 65
Reuven Frank walks onto: Frank, ‘The Making of the Tunnel’, 20–21.
CHAPTER 66
She’d clung to the table: Author interview with Evi Rudolph.
CHAPTER 67
Reuven Frank looks at: Frank, Out of Thin Air, 202, also New York Times article, 12 October 1962.
‘NBC was here!’: Frank, Out of Thin Air, 202.
Time magazine broke: Time magazine, 5 October 1962.
Left in the cold: Cable from US State Department to American Embassy in West Berlin, 19 September 1962.
No, they replied: Cable from American Embassy in West Berlin to US State Department, 6 October 1962.
The real answer: Frank, Out of Thin Air, 194.
West Berlin’s Senate: New York Times, 14 October 1962 and cable from American Embassy in West Berlin to State Department, 16 October.
The East German government writes a letter: Letter from the Government of the German Democratic Republic to American Embassy in West Berlin, 18 October 1962. Since the US didn’t recognise the East German government, there was no direct contact between East Germany and the US, so in a complicated piece of diplomacy, the East German government delivered the typewritten letter to the Czech Foreign Ministry in Prague, which passed it on to the American Embassy.
Even a state-run: Mitchell, The Tunnels, 252.
‘Minor international incident’: New York Times, 22 October 1962.
Something to tell them: Frank, The Story of Tunnel 29, 20–21, and New York Times article, 20 October 1962.
CHAPTER 68
One crisp November morning: Author interview with Evi Rudolph.
‘Flock of birds’: Der Tunnel, dir. Marcus Vetter, 1999.
Then the door opens: Author interview with Evi Rudolph.
CHAPTER 69
Khrushchev caved in: In return, President Kennedy would remove American missiles in Turkey – that part of the bargain was kept secret.
After NBC reassured: Letter from Robert Kinter (NBC) to Dean Rusk, 20 November 1962, Reuven Frank Papers.
Unlike anything else: Frank, Out of Thin Air, 206.
Arriving at Hotel Kempinski: Frank, The Story of Tunnel 29, 22.
CHAPTER 70
The program you are about to see: Placecard from start of film, Reuven Frank Papers, Tufts University.
One journalist points out: Rod Synnes in The Milwaukee Journal Stations, Friday 14 December 1962.
Half a million Berliners: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 4.
Wipe confetti off: Smyser, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall, 4.
‘We’ll never have’: Sorensen, Kennedy, 61.
For the first time: The film shown in West Berlin was an edited version, broadcast by a German producer who had bought the one-time rights from Mimmo and Gigi.
A Stasi informant: Stasi report, BStU / MfS HAI 13256 47.
CHAPTER 71
Wolfdieter sits: Author interview with Wolfdieter Sternheimer.
CHAPTER 72
Renate is walking: Gerda, another escapee arrested at the tunnel, would later tell Renate that she could tell from the way Renate was holding herself that she was smiling.
CHAPTER 73
Am I going to solitary: Author interview with Wolfdieter Sternheimer.
There were 12,000: Hertle, The Berlin Wall Story, 99.
CHAPTER 74
Siegfried sits in: Stasi report, 4 November 1977, BStU / MfS AIM 13337/64 Part I/I (000269).
Other escapes he’d betrayed: Stasi report, 4 June 1964, BStU / MfS AIM 13337/64 (000009).
‘Highly unreliable’: Stasi report, 2 July 1966, BStU / MfS 000245.
Group within Amnesty: Veigel, Wege durch die Mauer, 297.
‘It is… proposed’: Stasi report, 23 November 1977, BStU / MfS 104 AIM 13337/64 (000269).
CHAPTER 75
Joachim sits on: Author interview with Joachim Rudolph.
EPILOGUE
On the border: Hertle, The Berlin Wall Story, 119.
1 billion DM: Hertle, The Berlin Wall Story, 116.
Swelled to 274,000: Koehler, Stasi, 8.
90 per cent of escape plans: Hertle, The Berlin Wall Story, 161.
They were to be put: BStU / MfS Vorbereitung auf den Tag X – Die geplanten Isolierungslager des MfS, by Thomas Auerbach and Wolf-Dieter Sailer, 1995.
‘Burn the buildings down…’: MfS, ZAIG, Nr 496/89 reprinted in Mitter and Wolle, Ich lieb euch doch alle! Befehle und Lageberichte des MfS January–November 1989, 250.
AFTERWORD
Radioactive tags: Funder, Stasiland, 192.
Thousands of spies: In State Security and the Border, Daniela Munkel writes that by the 1980s, approximately 3,000 West German citizens served as unofficial collaborators (IMs) for the Stasi and many had been active for decades. The espionage the Stasi carried out in West Berlin wasn’t just about eliciting political, military and industrial secrets, but also involved spreading disinformation and revealing incriminating information to influence West German politics – the kind of disinformation campaigns we see around the world today. Munkel, Stasi Reader, 140.
High as 100,000: Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, xlv.
The only charges: Koehler, Stasi, 410.
A final request: Funder, Stasiland, 254.
Most slid into: Koehler, Stasi, 29.
Soon be sold: One of the longest sections of the Berlin Wall anywhere in the world is in Los Angeles, running along Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district, erected as part of a commemoration project. These old pieces of the Berlin Wall have now become a site for protests against other walls, such as the Mexican–American wall.
WHAT THEY DID NEXT
50 million TV viewers: The International Newspaper of Radio and Television, 27 May 1963.
‘Founding father’: Bill Carter in the New York Times.
Died in 2007: From correspondence with Burkhart Veigel, one of the diggers, and author of Wege durch die Mauer.
Bibliography
ARCHIVES AND PAPERS
Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (BStU): ‘Stasi Archives’, Berlin, Germany.
Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, German Broadcasting Archive.
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland.
Declassified CIA intelligence reports.
Declassified US State Department reports.
Internal letters and memos from NBC.
Telegrams and Cables from American Embassy in Berlin, 1962.
Berlin Brigade US Military Logs, 1962.
Reuven Frank Papers from Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts.
Munkel, Daniela (ed.), State Security: A Reader on the GDR Secret Police (Department of Education and Research, Berlin, 2015).
KEY ARTICLES
Bainbridge, John: ‘Die Mauer: the early days of the Berlin Wall’ (The New Yorker, 20 October 1962).
Frank, Reuven: ‘The Making of the Tunnel’ (Television Quarterly, 1963).
FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES
Der Tunnel, Documentary directed by Marcus Vetter, 1999.
The Tunnel, NBC documentary, broadcast on 10 December 1962 in the US.
INTERVIEWS (ALPHABETICAL)
Ulrich Pfeiffer
Eveline (Schmidt) Rudolph
Joachim Rudolph
Wolf Schroedter
Ellen (Schau) Sesta
Renate Sternheimer
Wolfdieter Sternheimer
BOOKS
Ahonen, Pertti, Death at the Berlin Wall (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
Beevor, Antony, Berlin: The Downfall (London: Penguin, 2002).
Cate, Curtis, The Ides of August (Berlin: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978).
Clare, George, Berlin Days 1946–47 (London: Papermac, 1994).
Dennis, J.M., The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic 1945–1990 (New York: Routledge, 2000).
Epstein, C., The Last Revolutionaries: German Communists and Their Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
Frank, Reuven, Out of Thin Air: The Brief Wonderful Life of Network News (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
Fulbrook, Mary, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR 1949–1989 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Funder, Anna, Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall (London: Granta, 2003).
Garton Ash, Timothy, The File: A Personal History (London: HarperCollins, 1997).
Harrison, Hope M., After the Berlin Wall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Hersh, Seymour, The Dark Side of Camelot (London: HarperCollins, 1997).
Hertle, Hans-Hermann, The Berlin Wall Story: Biography of a Monument (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2011).
Hertle, Hans-Hermann and Maria Nooke (eds.), The Victims at the Berlin Wall, 1961–1989 (Berlin: Christoph Links Verlag, 2011).
Jampol, Justinian (ed.), The East German Handbook: Arts and Artifacts from the GDR (Berlin: Taschen GmbH, 2017).
Kempe, Frederick, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth (New York: Berkley Books, The Penguin Group, 2011).
Koehler, John O., Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police (New York: Westview Press, 1999).
Leo, Maxim, Red Love: The Story of an East German Family (London: Pushkin Press, 2013).
Maclean, Rory, Berlin: Imagine a City (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014).
Marshall, Tim, Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls (London: Elliott & Thompson, 2018).
Mitchell, Greg, The Tunnels: The Untold Story of the Escapes Under the Berlin Wall (London: Transworld Publishers, 2017).
O’Donnell, Kenneth and Powers, David, Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye: Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983).
Preston, Diana, Eight Days at Yalta: How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World (London: Picador, 2019).
Reeves, Richard, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Richie, Alexandra, Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin (London: HarperCollins, 1999).
Schneider, Peter, The Wall Jumper (New York: Pantheon, 1983).
Sesta, Ellen, Der Tunnel in die Freiheit (Berlin: Ullstein, 2001).
Smyser, W.R., Kennedy and the Berlin Wall (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).
Taylor, Frederick, The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961 – 9 November 1989 (London: Bloomsbury, 2006).
Veigel, Burkhart, Wege durch die Mauer: Fluchthilfe und Stasi zwischen Ost und West (Berlin: Berliner Unterwelten, 2013).
Vogel, Steve, Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War’s Most Audacious Espionage Operation (New York: HarperCollins, 2019).
Watson, Mary, The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Wyden, Peter, Wall: The Inside Story of a Divided Berlin (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989).
Locations
After the release of the BBC podcast series, many listeners got in touch through social media, asking if I could send details of addresses in Berlin relating to the events of Tunnel 29. Below is a list of locations in Berlin. A few buildings have changed beyond recognition, but most are still intact, many of them now museums dedicated to preserving memories from the days of the Berlin Wall.
For an interactive, searchable map, click on: bit.ly/Tunnel29Map.
FORMER WEST BERLIN
• Haus der Zukunft – House of the Future: This was the headquarters of the Girrmann Group, West Berlin’s largest escape network: Goethestrasse 37, Zehlendorf.
• Siegfried Uhse’s flat in West Berlin: Augsburger Strasse 21, Schöneberg.
• Marienfelde Refugee Centre: Now a museum at Marienfelder Allee 66/80.
• Cellar in West Berlin from where Joachim and the others dug the main tunnel under the cocktail-straw factory: Wolgaster Strasse (the building itself no longer exists).
• Flat overlooking the wall where Harry Thoess set up the NBC camera to film the escape: Ruppiner Strasse.
• Replica of Tunnel 29: This is at the Berliner Unterwelten-Museum in the district of Wedding. The museum runs tours of Berlin’s history below ground, from bunkers to escape tunnels. Brunnenstrasse 105.
• CIA house where Mimmo told the Americans about the leak. P9: Podbielskiallee 9.
• Checkpoint Charlie: This is where Mimmo and Gigi crossed into East Berlin when they visited Peter and Evi. Friedrichstrasse 43–45.
• Berlin Wall Memorial: From a special viewing platform you can see a 70-metre stretch of the original Berlin Wall along with a watch-tower. The site also contains the moving ‘Window of Remembrance’, a collection of photographs of those who died at the Berlin Wall. Bernauer Strasse 111.
• RIAS radio: This was on Hans-Rosenthal-Platz, Schöneberg. It is now the site of Deutschlandfunk, one of Germany’s most popular national broadcasters.
• John-F-Kennedy-Platz: The square where John F. Kennedy gave his famous 1963 speech. District of Rathaus Schöneberg.
FORMER EAST BERLIN
• Friedrichstrasse station: The train station where Siegfried Uhse was caught smuggling cigarettes into East Berlin and the main crossing point between East and West Berlin.
• Heinrich-Heine-Strasse 46: The checkpoint where Wolfdieter Sternheimer was arrested.
• East German Police Headquarters: Wolfdieter Sternheimer was brought here after being arrested. Keibelstrasse 36, Mitte.
• Tränenpalast – ‘The Palace of Tears’: The glass and steel departure hall next to Friedrichstrasse, where Wolfdieter said goodbye to Renate after visiting her in East Berlin. Now a museum at Reichstagufer 17, Mitte.
• Sendler’s house, where the betrayed tunnel broke through: Puderstrasse 7, Treptow.
• Corner of Puderst
rasse and Herkomerstrasse: This is where the Stasi arrested many of those hoping to escape through the betrayed tunnel.
• Breakthrough site of the second, successful tunnel: Schönholzer Strasse 7, Prenzlauer Berg. A plaque on the wall next to the apartment marks the spot.
• ‘Orient’: The safe house where Siegfried Uhse met his handler the day he betrayed the escape operation. During the days of the GDR, this street was renamed Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse, after a communist politician. Since then, the name has reverted back. Torstrasse 72, Mitte.
• Stasi headquarters: Now a museum that has preserved the offices of Erich Mielke in their original condition. Over 800 million pages of Stasi files are stored here. Normannenstrasse 20, Lichtenberg.
• The Agency of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU): This is where Stasi files are brought when requests are made to see them. Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 31–33, Mitte. Runs occasional exhibitions.
• Hohenschönhausen Prison: Wolfdieter Sternheimer was confined here while in remand: Genslerstrasse 66, district of Hohenschönhausen. Now a museum.
OUTSIDE BERLIN
• Brandenburg Prison: Anton-Saefkow-Allee 38, in the Görden quarter of Brandenburg an der Havel. Now a museum.
Acknowledgements
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