The movie opens in the year 1961 when concrete walls and barbed wire divide East Berlin against
all treaties and agreements with the West. Even the weak links on the barriers are quickly sealed.
Over a million men, women and children are imprisoned without benefit of trial. Freedom
is gained only at the risk of sudden death at the hands of machine gun-bearing border guards.
The scene then cuts to Kurt Schroder, a chauffeur to East German Major Eckhardt
and his seductive wife Heidi. It turns out Kurt is having a secret affair with Heidi. One night,
after spending some time with her, Kurt heads towards a bar in order to have some
drinks. On the way, he meets his friend, Gunther Jurgens, driving a tow-truck. Kurt
asks for a ride to the nearby bar, which Gunther agrees to provide. While driving,
Kurt asks where he is heading, to which the latter pretends to have some work. However,
Kurt senses something amiss and warns him from taking any wrong steps before departing.
As he suspected, Gunther soon speeds his truck towards the border wall,
intending to escape to the west side. Though he manages to breach the wall, he becomes
entangled in the barbed wire, after which he is mercilessly shot down by the border guards.
When Gunther does not return home until the morning, his sister, Erika,
gets concerned and heads out in search of him. She goes to her brother’s workplace: a car garage,
and asks his colleagues about his whereabouts. However, no one seems to have any idea about it.
Shortly after, a worker tells her that he saw him with Kurt the previous night and provides
her with Kurt's address. Following this, Erika pays a visit to Kurt, who lives with his mother,
Uncle Albrecht, sister Ingeborg and kid brother, Helmut. She then talks to him in private,
and the latter reveals how her brother broke through the barrier disregarding his warning. But
before Kurt can disclose about his tragic fate, Erika misunderstands that her brother successfully
made it to the other side. As a result, she also decides to follow her brother’s suit and enter
West Berlin. She promptly walks out and heads to the nearby border wall. But as she attempts to
crawl under the barbed wire, Kurt somehow manages to pull her away before the guards can spot her.
Moments later, they hear some guards arriving, so they share a kiss, pretending to be lovers.
As soon as the guards depart, the duo flees the scene, and Kurt brings her back to his house.
Unbeknownst to them, a piece of Erika's clothing is caught in the barbed wire, and the guards
eventually track her to Kurt's house. Sensing the imminent danger, Kurt hides Erika inside a room
without a floor, locks the door from outside and hides the key inside his socks. Not long after,
the border guards barge into the house and demand the girl’s whereabouts. In response,
Kurt lies that they parted ways after taking a short walk together. However,
the guards do not believe him and begin searching the entire place. They soon come across the locked
room and order that the door be unlocked. Kurt lies that there is no key, so the guards resort
to break in. The moment they break the door, they discover that the room does not have a
floor. Following this, they conclude that the girl is not present in the house and depart.
In the aftermath of this incident, Kurt tells Erika that she can’t leave the place until it gets
dark. He says that he will bring Major Eckhardt’s vehicle and drop her home in it. Later, at work,
he requests the Major’s permission to borrow his car for a while, which the latter accepts.
Upon getting the permission, Kurt returns home in the car and asks Erika to prepare
for her departure. Just then, they hear a knock on the door; it is their neighbor,
Marga. Since she saw the Major’s car, she pleads with Kurt to help her escape to the west side of
Berlin in it. She claims that she has started feeling depressed after living here. It turns
out that Marga’s husband is in West Berlin and she desperately wants to reunite with him. However,
Kurt asserts that he can do nothing as he is just a chauffeur. After failing to persuade him,
she resorts to blackmailing him because she seems to know that he is hiding Erika. Despite this,
he maintains that he is helpless in this matter, which prompts her to leave with a saddened face.
Later on, Kurt’s mother is furious at him for turning Marga down. She reminds how
his father used to help people in every way he could, unlike what he’s doing. But this is not
enough to convince Kurt as he claims that his father’s generosity led him to prison
for 3 years. As their discussion escalates, his mother as well as his sister admits their wish
to escape to the other side. Kurt is infuriated to hear this as he believes that it is clearly a
suicide mission. He then storms off to the basement in order to take some time alone.
A short while later, Erika approaches him and tries to persuade him to at least give
it a try. After a while of deliberation, he comes up with an idea: to build a tunnel under
the border’s barrier, through which they can escape to West Berlin. He then shares his plan
with the rest of his family members, and they immediately give him the green light. However,
there is a problem: in order to create a tunnel, they must start drilling through
their basement wall, which will create a loud noise. If this noise continues for a long time,
the border guards will get suspicious and they might get caught. As a result, Kurt comes up
with a brilliant idea to carry out the drilling during Uncle Albrecht's music practice session.
But despite this full-proof plan, Kurt asserts that he has no intention of going with them.
The following day, he heads to the car garage where he often has the Major’s car maintained.
From there, he borrows a drilling machine under the pretense that he is creating a small swimming
pool at his place. Just before he departs, he is approached by a man named Walter Brunner. Much
to Kurt’s surprise, Walter informs him that he will soon be relocating to his house because his
mother has rented a room for him. Realizing that it will jeopardize the entire plan,
Kurt quickly returns his money, claiming that the room is no longer available.
From that evening onward, Kurt, Erika and the other family members initiate their
escape plan. One of the family members keeps watch, while the others work under the cover
of Uncle Albrecht's music. As the days pass by, they manage to dig deeper and deeper. They also
confide their plan to Marga, who is overjoyed and expresses her gratitude for the same.
One day, Helmut is playing outside the house with his paper plane when
it accidentally gets stuck in the barbed wire fence. The boy proceeds to retrieve it,
but he is spotted by the border guards. They confiscate his paper
plane and tear it apart to check if it contains any message. Thankfully,
Kurt shows up just in time and somehow manages to save his brother from getting into any trouble.
After several days of digging, they come across a tough wall on their way. They try to break
it through, but their efforts prove futile as they do not have the proper equipment. Erika
suggests that they dig over the wall, but Kurt deems it too risky because they are already very
close to the surface. Believing it as a dead end, they all begin to lose hope. Regardless,
Uncle Albrecht encourages the team to take the risk because they can’t just let several
days of their efforts go in vain. When everyone agrees, Kurt also follows the suit reluctantly.
One rainy day, while the team is in the middle of the digging process, they are suddenly alarmed by
flickering lights. Soon after, Kurt’s mother rushes to the basement and informs them about
someone at the door. Kurt then answers the front door and finds Walter, who reveals that he knows
what is going on in the basement. In order to prove his claim, he shows him a wired pole near
the border wall that has loosened up due to the tunnel right beneath it. This revelation sets
Kurt in panic, so he rushes back to the tunnel and uses some wooden planks to support the pole.
In the next scene, Walter discloses that he has been planning to dig a tunnel as well,
but he didn't have enough support to do so. But now, he is happy that he has company and expresses
his wish to join them. Despite the lack of trust, the team members have no choice but to let him in.
Some more days pass, and the team is seen working tirelessly. Apart from all of this,
Kurt and Erika eventually fall in love with each
other. She also manages to convince him to escape with the rest of them.
One night, Erika suddenly passes out due to low oxygen levels in the tunnel. Kurt hurriedly brings
her out and lets her breathe some fresh air through the window. During this private time,
Erika expresses her dream of reaching the other side and reuniting with her brother. Hearing this,
Kurt is unable to hide the truth any longer, so he summons the courage to reveal that her
brother is no more. He asserts that he wanted to tell her about it in the very beginning,
but she didn’t allow him. And as the days passed by, he didn't have the guts to tell
her. This revelation leaves her in shock, causing her to tear up, but Kurt is there to console her.
In the next couple of days, the tunnel is finally completed, confirmed by a glimpse through a small
opening. Kurt immediately shares this news to the rest of the team members,
who then intend to break out during the night time. That evening, Marga goes to
Erika’s place and informs her parents about her whereabouts. She even reveals about the
secret tunnel and asks them to join their mission. Unfortunately, this turns out to
be a big mistake. Erika’s father, who is a professor favoring the Communist regime,
immediately relays this plan to Major Eckhardt. He only has a condition: that his daughter be saved.
Meanwhile, Kurt is waiting to drive the Major when he learns that the authorities are after
him. Sensing the imminent danger, he takes the Major’s car and hurries home. Upon arrival,
he is shocked to learn that his family has invited Uncle Albrecht's band members and
some more people to join the escape, bringing the number of escapees to 28. Despite this,
Kurt has no time to react, so he immediately instructs all of them to start moving. As the
soldiers besiege their house, the Schroders, their friends and Erika are in the midst of
their escape, with Kurt guarding the rear. One of the soldiers spots him and chases him through
the tunnel. Amidst this intense moment, Kurt somehow manages to collapse the tunnel behind him,
but he gets shot in the process. Fortunately, Erika comes back to his rescue and takes him
along. They then proceed deeper into the tunnel until they finally reach the other side.
While many more remain imprisoned in East Berlin,
Kurt, Erika, and 26 others are able to start a new and peaceful life.