![]() His picture has since become an iconic image of the Cold War era and featured at the beginning of the 1982 Disney film Night Crossing. West German photographer Peter Leibing photographed Schumann’s escape. Schumann jumped over the barbed wire while dropping his PPSh-41 submachine gun and was promptly driven away from the scene by the West Berlin police. From the other side, West Germans shouted to him, “Komm’ rüber!” (“Come over!”), and a police car pulled up to wait for him. At that time and place, the wall was only a single coil of concertina wire. After three months’ training in Dresden, he was posted to a non-commissioned officers’ college in Potsdam, after which he volunteered for service in Berlin. On 15 August 1961, the 19-year-old Schumann was sent to the corner of Ruppiner Straße and Bernauer Straße to guard the Berlin Wall on its third day of construction. ![]() Born in Zschochau, Saxony during the middle of World War II, Conrad Schumann enlisted in the East German Bereitschaftspolizei (state police) following his 18th birthday.
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