Steven Den Beste on the Berlin Wall:

I don't remember ever hearing about anyone trying to sneak into the Soviet bloc that way, let alone dying in the attempt. About the only people who might have wanted to would have been spies.

That's not quite correct. In the late '70s or early '80s The American Spectator reported that a young West German had tried repeatedly to do just that. After apprehending him for the 8th or 18th time (details are a little fuzzy now), the East German authorities demanded that the West German authorities put him in a mental hospital. It was, as TAS noted with cheerful contempt, a very revealing demand.