We managed to complete the “Visitors’ Tunnel” project, which began in September 2017, on the 30^th anniversary of the fall of the Wall after just over two years of construction. This new tunnel leads - as planned - from vaulted concrete cellar 3 at 143 Brunnenstrasse to the basement of 141 Brunnenstrasse.
Here, visitors climb back to the surface via a historic brewery spiral staircase. With the construction of the new tunnel, we were able to take advantage of the special opportunity to intersect with the last underground escape tunnel on Bernauer Strasse, built in 1970/71 by escape helper Hasso Herschel and his comrades-in-arms. We have thus succeeded in creating the only opportunity worldwide to see an original escape tunnel. There remains the possibility of uncovering and exploring the part of the escape tunnel that is still under the Wall strip and has not yet been made accessible. In addition, the original escape tunnel needs to be structurally secured in the space underneath the built-up areas.
These will be the challenges that our association would like to realise in the coming years.
In the long term, we intend to further expand our exhibition on the escape tunnels of Berlin in the vaults of the former Oswald Berliner Brewery, using various media. We are convinced that with Tour M we are making an important contribution towards coming to terms with the history of the division of our city and the Berlin Wall, and we look forward to many more interested visitors in the years to come, whom we would like to bring closer to this special topic.