As the border fortifications were being built, many people from the GDR availed themselves of the last chance to flee to the West before the "iron curtain" came down for good. Moving episodes took place, especially on Bernauer Strasse, where parents threw their young children out of windows on the eastern side into the life nets of the fire brigades standing ready on the western side. East German border guards hurrying to the sites tried to intercept old people trying to jump from the windows. Even the border guards themselves sometimes took advantage of lapses of attention to escape the watch of their colleagues, as Conrad Schumann did by leaping over the barbed wire and fleeing to the west.

The escape attempts did not always end happily. Many a person jumping from a window missed the life nets of the fire brigades, and the East German border guards had orders to use their weapons if necessary to prevent escape. In West Berlin seventy-nine fatalities related to escape attempts have so far been recorded. No one can say how high the number of unreported cases was. In addition, there were many injured. Not a few persons were arrested and incarcerated even before they could make their attempt. West Germany was later able to "buy" some of these political prisoners out of jail.