WEST BERLIN -- City police Lt. Kappel Reinhardt once stood helplessly as a fatally wounded East German man, gunned down only a foot from the Berlin Wall, climbed to escape to the West.

"He was crying, 'Help me, help me,' " and we could not reach him," Reinhardt said of 18-year-old Peter Fechter. "We could not let our people over the wall because we were not sure they would shoot them or not."

A West German officer dropped a first aid package over the wall to the stunned youth but after more than an hour standoff on that gray 1962 afternoon, nervous East German guards carried the young man away, dead.

The Wall Museum, at the border of the American and British sectors of West Berlin, documents many similar escape attempts from East Berlin.

Large photographs and narratives of desperate escape attempts cover the walls behind exhibits of pulleys, compartments and other gadgets used to aid people on their flight west.

Though Fechter's effort failed, several others survived daring escape attempts -- pulled through tunnels, hidden in cars and also flown by balloon.

Many East Germans, with their new freedom to travel, have come to see the museum on their way west, said employee Carola Ibe.

"The museum is doing well now because the East Germans are coming here," she said. "Some people didn't know about the museum but others say it's one of the most important places to go when they come to the West."

The centerpiece of the ground floor gallery is the platform of a large homemade hot air balloon that supported electrician Peter Strelzyk and truck driver Gunter Wenzel and their families in an escape from East Berlin in 1979.

The two men knew nothing about aerodynamics when they set out to build the machine, but they decided to try anyway. In less than 30 minutes they traveled to the border.

Several others have escaped by simply making a run for it. Many fellow citizens were often willing to help escapees by cutting barbed wire or distracting border patrols during an attempt.

In one celebrated case in 1964, an American soldier jumped on the wall and yelled at an East German soldier for firing on 20-year-old Hanz Meyer as he tried to climb up the wall. During the standoff, the American was backed up by a West Berlin policeman who had drawn his gun and threatened to shoot if the boy was not released.

That same year, 57 people -- the greatest number to escape at one time from East Berlin -- crawled through a muddy, cramped tunnel dug under the wall by adventurous university students. For six months, they hollowed out the pathway with a small wooden cart and dumped the dirt in rooms of a rented bakery on the West German side.

As the last of the escapees made their way to the end of the tunnel, East German border guards discovered the entrance in a backyard outhouse. Everyone escaped but East German guards destroyed the tunnel immediately.

The small, mud-caked wooden cart sits on the second floor of the museum surrounded by life-size photos of the escape.

East German border guards often searched cars and trucks because several people had escaped in automobile trunks or secret compartments. Automobiles with low-riding carriages were almost always searched because they suggested a heavy load.

One technique usually evaded the search. Women free to travel between the countries would place hard rubber balls inside the car's coil suspension spring to prevent the car from sagging to the ground under the weight of additional passengers.

On the day of the escape, friends would form a convoy of loaded trucks and cars to cross the border and occupy guards.

After several vehicles, the actual escape car would drive through with the East German hidden in a secret compartment. The guards, tired of searching the convoy, were happy to find an empty car and just waved it on.