I know this is really specific, but it's really just a question about the mechanics (for want of a better word) in the East/West German division.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Hoff
He was shot dead crossing the canal in Berlin, trying to get over the Wall in Berlin. But he started his journey in Lusatia, which is waay the hell outside of Berlin and due south. His mother was in Hanover. He had no family in Berlin. I don't understand, through my ignorance no doubt, why he didn't go West from where he was in order to escape.
Long shot, I know. Cheers, blunty.
The Berlin wall was still under construction when Hoff escaped - he dressed as a construction worker and tried to swim across the canal from Teltow to Lichterfelde at a point where surveillance infrastructure was being constructed. The inner German border between West Germany and the DDR on the other hand was one of the most heavily guarded borders on earth, with 50,000 border guards on the DDR side alone, and millions of troops, as well as fences, ditches, mines, towers and so on.
An interesting point is that Hoff had only emigrated to the DDR from West Germany two months before, possibly to escape a drink-driving charge. He got cold feet when the wall went up in on 13 August (he was shot on 29 August) and was sacked for speaking out against the wall in his workplace.
Source: The Victims at the Berlin Wall 1961-1989: A Biographical Handbook, by HH Hertle & M Nook