samrandom submitted:
Conrad Schumann
The most famous of these escapes was made by 19-year-old guard Conrad Schumann on August 15, 1961—50 years ago today—just the third day of the wall’s construction. Since the “wall” was really just piles of barbed wire at that point, Schumann jumped over the wire in his uniform while toting his machine gun. A photographer caught Schumann’s flying leap, and the jump to freedom became an iconic Cold War image. Schumann eventually settled in the southwestern state of Bavaria and worked as a machine operator. He committed suicide in 1998.