Up in the Air: Escaping from East Germany
Super account of an extremely dangerous and imaginative way to escape the East. They were extremely lucky, the prevailing winds there are West-to-East.Every time I crossed back from East Germany into West Germany after spending time in Poland I had my car pretty much taken apart at the border (the head of the 'corridor', at a place called Helmstedt, if you drive by there today you can still see the watchtowers and the old border to the right of the highway) to make sure I wasn't hiding anybody in the strange bodywork of the car (a Citroen model DS which has a lot of weird curves and spaces).Very frustrating because the border guards would be very diligent about ripping everything up but they would definitely not help putting things back together again.One day I had my engine overheating on the Eastern side at the border and was greeted by rounds of tracer behind the car when I tried to back out of the cage that the car was in in search of water.Another time I got arrested at 'Checkpoint Charlie' by one Oberwachtmeister Krause because I wasn't supposed to be there (on the Eastern side). He was entirely correct that I shouldn't be there, the reason was that I'd helped a bunch of people that were stuck in their car (a Trabant, a small two stroke car with an extremely small engine that was prone to stop working for no particular reason) by the side of the road (East Germans were allowed the use of the corridor as well, but visitors and West Germans could not leave that road except with special permission) and I couldn't find my way back to the corridor. I had followed the signs back saying 'Berlin' but did not realize soon enough that this would not work. After many hours waiting and interviews and threats we were finally allowed to leave again. The Americans were quite surprised that a car with Dutch license plates approached from the East German side of the most guarded border in Europe, probably a first for them.No fond memories of the officials in 'The East', I hope their children and grandchildren will remind them periodically that they were part of the problem.Many of them went on to positions in the current German police force and military, not without resistance of their former West German colleagues who saw them (rightly) responsible for the many deaths on the East German side.Fortunately these families made it, many did not and it is good to remember that this was only a very few short years ago. Especially worth remembering given that if the East German authorities had had access to the kind of information that current governments have access to that these families likely would not have made it out at all and/or would have been killed in the attempt.