A HERO'S DEATH

It was the biggest escape in the history of the Berlin Wall: in one historic night of October 1964, 57 East-Berliners try their luck through a tunnel into West Berlin. Just before the last few reach the other side, the East German border guards notice the escape and open fire. Remarkably, all the refugees and their escape agents make it out of the tunnel unscathed, but one border guard is dead: 21-year-old officer Egon Schultz. The GDR proclaims him a national hero, claiming: "Bandits from West Berlin have violently killed officer Schultz." More than ten years after the German Reunification, documents are found proving otherwise. It seems Egon Schultz was inadvertently shot by one of his own comrades – but there's more to the story. In this documentary, escape agents from this historic event speak publicly for the first time about what happened that night. Hidden footage, filmed by a cameraman and stored for 36 years in a private apartment, is revealed publicly for the first time.