ABSTRACT
July 1, 1988 was the only date on which there was ever a mass flight from West Berlin into East Germany. On this day, a group of nearly 200 Kreuzberg protesters escaped West Berlin by leaping the Wall into the custody of East Berlin border guards. Their flight was the culmination of a six-week long standoff between West Berlin police and a small group of environmentalists and squatters who wished to protect a plot of land called the “Lenné Triangle,” situated between the Wall and the western half-city’s largest park, from the possible construction of a highway. That early July morning, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) welcomed the refugees with all the courtesy due to a public relations coup that had fallen into its lap, gave them breakfast, and sent them back home: for all the event’s exceptionality, a rather unremarkable conclusion.
