Why the Border Guards
Defect
BY MICHAEL MARAMore than one thousand East
Berlin border guards have defected to the West
since the Wall went up in August of 1961. One of
them is the author of this article,MICHAEL MARA,
a twenty-four-year-old Berliner who,on Christmas
Eve of 1961,escaped to the West.
ByMichael Mara
DECEMBER 1963 ISSUE
SHORTLY after our arrival at the Twelfth Border
Company at Drewitz it was impressed upon us that we
must expect to be the target of provocative acts from
the West side. There would be Americans in
Steinstücken who would throw stones at us to provoke
us into shooting at them. We were warned that the
West Berlin police in the Kohlhasenbrück area were
controlled by an American spy ring and that they would
try to bribe us with cigarettes and liquor.
My first impression of the border was the barbedwire
barrier around Steinstücken, “Over there,” said my
patrol leader, pointing to a bar, “that’s where we used
to get Western cigarettes. That’s all finished now.” He
was in a nasty mood. “Just had a letter from my girl,” he
went on. “She’s running out on me. Her mother told her
