BERLIN -- East German border guards opened fire Monday night to capture a man trying to flee to the West over the Berlin wall, West Berlin police said today.
The guards fired several shots but witnesses told police the man apparently was not hit.
Guards captured the man and led him away, police said.
The incident took place on the border of the American sector and East Berlin.
The West German newspaper Bild reported today the successful flight of three men across the East-West German border to Bavaria Saturday.
Once safely in the West at 2 a.m. they kissed an astonished milkman, Bild said.
They jumped up and down, embraced the milkman, shouting, 'We've made it, we've made it,' the newspaper reported.
The three men decided to flee on the spur of the moment on a dark, cloudy night when drinking beer in a cafe near the border of Bavaria and the East German province of Thuringia, the newspaper said.
They were Rolf Meffert, 57, a widower, his Fred, 17, and Helmut Lieck, 43, a bachelor.
'We stole a ladder from a farm and climbed over the first electric fence,' Liek said. 'Behind the fence was a narrow road.
'Suddenly there was the glare of headlights. It was a patrol car of the People's Army. We went down in the dirt. It was lucky the patrol car came along for its headlights lit up for us the hair-thin wire of a booby trap that would have spit out deadly shrapnel if we touched it.
'Then came a minefield.
'I went first,' Rolf Meffert said. 'I told the others I've lived a lot of life and they were younger. I carefully put one foot before the other and they followed in my exact footsteps.
'It was cold but we were soaked with sweat. Then came another barrier about nine feet high and we went over it.'
