大象传媒

大象传媒 World Service
Last updated:聽6 november, 2009 - 09:30 GMT

The man who drove a tank into the Berlin wall

On Monday, Germans will be marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

The people who crossed from East to West Germany on November 9 1989, did so in a joyous, celebratory fashion but, in the previous three decades, there were many dramatic and sometimes doomed attempts to escape from the communist part of the city.

One of the most dramatic was carried out in April 1963, by a man called Wolfgang Engels.

An East German soldier, who'd helped to construct the barbed wire barriers along the East-West border, he'd become disillusioned with the communist regime.

So one night he stole a tank and drove it, at full speed, through East Berlin towards the wall.

He tells his story to the 大象传媒's Paul Henley.

First broadcast 5 November 2009