Berlin wall: 'It felt like 200 metres, but it was just the width of a building'

She was determined that nothing was going to stop her getting married - not even the Berlin Wall.

Two days before, East German border guards in the dead of night had set up the first barbed-wire version of the Wall.

Mrs Schallert, then 22, lived with her parents in the east but studied in the west where her fianc, Herbert, lived. She had crossed the border regularly for 13 years and ignored warnings that a crackdown was coming.

When her father told her transport links had been severed, she put on the black dress she planned to wear for her civil wedding and wrapped up the cloth for her church wedding dress, and made for a friend's apartment close to Bernauer Strasse in the west but whose buildings on one side were in the east.

Mrs Schallert told the border guard in front of the apartments that she was visiting a tailor to have her wedding dress made.

After several hours she was joined by four acquaintances of her friend who had crossed from the west.

Outside the apartment, three of the four went over to distract the guards while Mrs Schallert and the other woman quietly and confidently walked across the street to freedom.

"It felt like I was walking 200 metres, but it was maybe the width of a building only," Mrs Schallert says.

"The woman walked behind me and just kept saying, 'Stay calm'. And then I was in West Berlin."

At least 136 people were killed trying to get through the Wall, most of them shot by East German border guards.

More than 75,000 people were imprisoned for trying to leave East Germany.

"It was clear to me that it could've gone wrong but I suppressed that thought. I just functioned," Mrs Schallert said.

CLAUDIA DOERRIES