Conrad Schumann escaping the Berlin Wall: famous image of the Cold War

Conrad Schumann (1942 - 1998), one of the most famous defectors from East Germany. The Berlin Wall was on its third day of construction on 15th August 1961. At that stage it was only a low barbed wire fence. Aged 19, Schumann was guarding it. Then, some people on the Western side shouted Komm rber! (“come over”). Schumann jumped the barbed wire then entered a waiting West Berlin police car which quickly sped away. The moment when he jumped was immortalised by photographer Peter Leibing and became a well-known Cold War image. In 1998, suffering from depression, he hanged himself.