Peter Leibing
Hans Konrad Schumann

Freedom is a factor whose importance allows it to materialize by any means. If one can indeed succeed. Various examples of escaping from any kind of imprisonment have always occurred. Bizarre, fortunate, incredible, fatal. In Germany divided by the wall, just to give a fitting example, they tried many ways. From balloons, underground tunnels to simple climb-overs, many from the Demokratische Republik fled towards the freedom of the Bundesrepublik. Just as there were too many who became victims of the sector guards' gunfire.

Peter Leibing is a young photographer from Hamburg who is systematically sent to racetracks to capture potential excellence among trots and gallops. A specialist in capturing the right moment during a jump. Skillful in extracting clarity easily obscured by the speed of time. It is precisely a jump, but not an equine one, that will bring him fame for an image that will become a symbol of freedom.

Mid-August 1961. The Soviet bloc in an evolutionary phase and Germany in a partition phase. The Berlin Wall in planning stages. The first concrete blocks are placed on the DDR's asphalt. Some sections are delineated by barbed wire. An idea of what will be, before it is replaced by bricks. The news spreads and Leibing, tired of the equestrian temples and in search of a different stimulus for some time, between a genuflection with intertwined hands and a tear on the pitiful side, manages to secure a reportage on the events in Berlin from the agency's grim boss.

That day Berlin is teeming with photographers and the young Peter strolls along Bernauerstrasse, skirting the French sector. These days, amidst general disbelief and amazement, people who just a minute before could talk, walk, live together, find themselves dramatically divided. Someone is pondering this condition and does so seriously. Hans Konrad Schumann is a young police officer on guard at the border, eastern side. At just 19 years old, he is struck by an event that occurred just hours before. The forced prohibition of family reunions. Dramatic. Absurd. He appears calm but is actually very nervous and has been shredding large handfuls of tobacco in the form of cigarettes for a few hours. A cloud of smoke and a sigh. Continuously. One eye fixed on the guard post and the other intermittently raging towards the western frontier. Probably beating to the pace of his understandably frantic heart.

The area to be monitored is confined by barbed wire. He rethinks what happened before and meditates. Carefully. His restlessness catches Leibing's attentive gaze, and not only his. Something is about to happen. Meanwhile, a police van patrols the area in front, on the western side. Back and forth, nervously. Leibing raises the camera that was bouncing on his stomach a moment before. A few minutes past 4:00 PM.

"Jump horse, jump!"

The van stops and the tailgate opens. From inside, a colleague and friend of Schumann yells a sharp "Komm rüber!", meaning "Come over here!". It's an extremely brief time fragment. Hans turns, taking advantage of the other guards' distraction. He spits out yet another cigarette and thinks: "Why should I bother!" and after a short run takes an Olympic-value leap, freeing himself of the issued Kalashnikov and brilliantly surpassing the barbed curtain to dive into the van. Towards freedom. Leibing, accustomed to equestrian hurdle jumps, captures at just the right moment what will become the icon of the Cold War. An image that will earn him the Best Overseas Press Club Award for Photography in 1961.

And Schumann? For him it unfortunately turned out badly. After his escape, he was recognized as a political refugee and had the opportunity to build a family in Bavaria, working as a factory worker at Audi assembly lines. The STASI, under pressure from his family, repeatedly tried to reintegrate him into the DDR without success. Depression and alcohol did the rest. And the final blow came after the fall of the Wall when he was rejected and pushed away by his relatives. He committed suicide by hanging in 1998.

When freedom comes at a high cost.