Between Worlds

The photo of Conrad Schumann’s leap to the Western part of Berlin is one of the most iconic pictures of August 1961. It demonstrates the despair felt by many soldiers and policemen at this time. In all the years of the East-West German conflict, many border guards were aware of the fact that the border regime was inhuman and unjustified. Most of them knew that shooting civilians was morally objection-able, and several silently rejected the regime. They were ordered and put under pressure to use their weapons. Over the years, many of them found it difficult to cope with the dilemma and escaped to the West. Deserters who were caught in the act were put on trial and convicted to serve long prison sentences. On 15 August 1961, in those very early days of barbed wire and concrete, a young border guard called Conrad Schumann was standing nervously at the spot he was guarding. West Berliners watching the scene saw him pacing up and down and smoking cigarettes, clearly disturbed by what was going on around him. Somehow press photographers became aware of his insecurity and waited, watching him. With onlookers calling to him to “come on over”, Schuman suddenly tossed away his cigarette, took a running start and, throwing his rifle aside, jumped over the barbed wire and into a waiting police car on the West Berlin side. The scene was immortalized by 19-year-old photographer Peter Leibing, who had been watching Schumann for a long time. Leibing’s photo instantly made Schumann famous as the first East German soldier to jump the wall. Over 2,000 more would find ways to leave in the coming decades.Schumann’s life in the West was not as ideal as one might have thought. Although he was outwardly successful – he settled in Bavaria, started a family and had a good job all the years after his famous jump – he suffered from loneliness because of his loss of direct contacts with his family in the East. Of course he could never go back to visit!When the Berlin Wall finally fell, he was able to reunite with his family and friends, but many looked down on him for what they saw as his desertion. In 1998, without leaving a note, he hanged himself.Even though the story does not have a happy ending, Schumann’s photo jumping over the barbed wire is still one of the most potent and recognized images of the Cold War. It is interesting that the photo did not bring him wealth: he never earned a cent from it.I often ask myself when I pass the Berlin Wall Me-morial whether Conrad’s moment of braveness won him the degree of freedom he was hoping for.Lyndon B. Johnson (US President from 1963-1968) once said: Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose! So, I guess, we will always be left with the question: Did he win or did he lose?The first layer of this art piece are pages of the magazine published by Berlin’s taz newspaper “DDR Journal Nr. 2; Die Wende der Wende / GDR Journal Number 2, The turnaround of the turnaround” January to March 1990. My father saved it all these years. The articles are all about the reunification and what happened the days and weeks after it.The yellow map shows the divided Berlin separated by a red wall – a bloodline that claimed a large number of victims. While it says DDR (GDR) on the right side (East), Conrad is already on the left side (West).