On August 15, 1961, 19-year-old Conrad Schumann was sent to guard the Berlin Wall, which, on its third day of construction, was little more than patches of barbed wire. That day, he witnessed sad scenes of families that were separated by the wall and found himself the target of vitriol from West Germans protesting the wall’s construction.

At around 4 p.m. that afternoon, Schumann saw trucks arrive with material to make the wall even stronger and — panicked by the idea of being “enclosed” within East Germany — he decided to make a break for it by leaping over a low string of barbed wire and into West Germany.

Schumann’s leap over the wall was captured by a photographer at the scene. Dubbed the “Leap Into Freedom,” it remains one of the most iconic images of the Cold War to this day.