Up in the Air: Escaping from East Germany | Hacker News Reader

Up in the Air: Escaping from East Germany

damninteresting.com

205 pointsvinnyglennon87 comments

If you ever get a chance to visit Berlin, make sure you go visit the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Big sections of the museum are devoted to the outlandish and ingenious ways that East Germans went over, under, around or through the Iron Curtain. If I recall correctly, there may actually be the remains of this home-made balloon, or at least a replica. Two others that I remember in particular:

A West Berliner happened to own a convertible sportscar, and was dating an East German woman. One weekend, on returning from the East after visiting his girlfriend, he realized that if he put the top and the windscreen down, his vehicle was low enough to pass under the bar that was used at the East German checkpoint (this was relatively early, possibly before the Berlin Blockade, so security was laxer.) The next weekend, when he went to visit, he brought his girlfriend with him, and just gunned the car through the barricade, passing under the barrier into West Berlin.

Another was a former aeronautic engineer who built a home-made aircraft in his barn, and flew over the wall to the west.

Imagine if they'd had drones back then. How many drones does it take to generate enough lift and control to fly a 180-pound person?

That's called an 'ultralight aircraft'.

Well, they had submersible underwater scooters back then. I thought that escape was pretty cool--Manfred Burmeister, 1969.

Disney actually made a movie out of this; they touch on it briefly at the end of the article. I watched it as a kid in once in school. It was called "Night Crossing" [0]. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's on any streaming service, but if you look around you might be able to find a DVD copy somewhere.

Also, as a side note, it's nice to see Damn Interesting on here. It's one of the better blogs out there even if they don't update as much as they used to. The article about the race to liquefy helium and chasing the lowest temperature ever was really, really good [1].

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/

[1] http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k/

Another movie that has an Escaping from East Germany story line is "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch_%28f...

Thanks! I'm the founder of the site, and author of Absolute Zero is 0K. I wish we could post articles more frequently, but it's a spare-time-and-weekends project, and my spare time shrinks as I accumulate life responsibilities and such. And because I am the final editor I am a terrible bottleneck.

I have hundreds--if not thousands--of other topics I want to write about. I am optimistic that one day I'll be able to afford to quit one of my days jobs and spend more time on Damn Interesting, which would help improve our posting frequency tremendously. In the meantime I sigh wistfully.

Hey, thanks for all the great articles! I don't want to come across as ungrateful or anything; I've been a reader for years and I love your work.

I put your blog in the same category as Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. They don't update super often, but when they do I know they're going to be good. :)

Thanks for that great article. I was born near the place these two families touched down. Some years ago I was able to see the ballon. Quite moving.

Have you considered Patreon?

I have indeed considered it, but there are some technical hurdles for me to overcome first. Most notably, our current donation system has a lot of automation included that I would need to reproduce for Patreon (e.g., sending 5% to our Kiva fund, putting funds into various buckets depending on multiple variables, etc).

I remember watching this as a teenager. http://www.canistream.it/search/movie/53ae3fc8f5f807201c6b3d... shows rental available from amazon and others.

There is still much suspicion in Germany. Families still remember their 'missing' members.

One the way home, stopped in Germany early 1991 to see a good friend. While sitting at sidewalk table, my friend abruptly arose and got in the face of another patron. Words were exchanged, and they went behind the building. My friend returned later, with blood on his sleeves and hands, with his pocket notebook out. With a grim smile, he indicated that he now has a "list of people to talk to...".

The wounds of Germany will not heal until their people of my generation have been buried.

the wall fell in 1988. 3 years before your event.

its been over 20 years since then - there is no real witch hunt or hostility anymore.

Well it was on 9th of November 1989. Not 1988. But yeah, there is no witchhunt.

Yet much unrest in Germany due to massive migrant influx and why Germany who was pioneer within the EU to scap the borders is now looking at reintroducing them, whilst at the same time belittling other EU members for still having them as a means of migrant control.

So with that, whole new generations will be carrying that mistrust torch and indeed how Ukraine was handled and Russian dealings still show a mistrust greater than the people who lived thru such times.

The biggest impact though was the Stazi and a whole mistrust upon authority at some level still pertains and when the Snowden (NSAsceptic some could say given how the EU treats people who question things) was very much supported more in Germany and indeed more so than other countries in that area.

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.

Fascinating stories. Would love to read more if you have them written down.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspys...

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.

Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration, disproved by the many criminals (arguably the the existence of otherwise traceable crimes) and people under surveillance who regularly get away?

Useless anecdote: I've sometimes seen border guards checking passengers' faces/details against faxes as they exit the plane I'm on. I'm nosy, and have hung around a couple of times to see what's happen - in the end, absolutely nothing.

It seems that even if they know you've got away, the how and where can remain elusive, even in this day and age.

Edit: Forgot to add, I loved your comment! I would love to hear more about your times in e.g. Poland at that time in your life.

> Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration, disproved by the many criminals (arguably the the existence of otherwise traceable crimes) and people under surveillance who regularly get away?

It's proven by the many people that were picked up before they could make their attempt because the VoPo's picked up on that before they could actually do it.

These guys would happily turn in their mothers if that's what it took to rise in the ranks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkspolizei

A bit of 'big data' (to use a popular buzzword) magic would have turned up the names of the two buyers of fabric from the story linked in mere seconds.

Your experience with passengers exiting planes is probably not comparable unless it is in a country like Israel or North Korea. Keep in mind that it wasn't that the police was looking to stop particular people at the border but that they were simply trying to stop everybody from leaving (which tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands would have done if given the opportunity)

I've written a bit about what it was like to be in Communist Poland here:

http://jacquesmattheij.com/a-western-kid-living-in-communist...

Joke from the era:

Erich Honecker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker) has been abroad for a state visit and returns home. Upon reaching Berlin looking out from the windows of the aircraft he notices that the streets seem very quiet. After landing this is confirmed, they drive around for hours on end without encountering a single soul. Finally, in desperation they drive up to the Berlin wall and search along side it, when they reach a very large gaping hole in the middle. Next to the hole is a wooden post with an envelope stapled to it, addressed to Honecker. He opens it and finds a note inside:

"Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus...".

For non-German speakers, the joke's punchline is "Honecker, you are the last to leave, please turn out the lights."

It sounds much better in German of course :)

"Honecker, du bist der letzte, mach bitte das Licht aus..."

I think there's a little typo, it should be "macht". Then it yields the sentence "Honecker, you're the last, please turn off the lights."

"mach" is imperative singular, "macht" is imperative plural. So "mach bitte das Licht aus" is addressing Honecker directly (which is most likely intended here), where "macht bitte das Licht aus" would also address the people with him.

"mach" is the imperative form of "machen" and perfectly fine in that sentence in the sense of "Honecker, please turn of the lights!".

With "macht" the sentence would be more of an observation and the "bitte" (please) would sound weird: "Honecker please turns of the light."

Edit: as tazjin stated "macht" can also be used to address the whole group.

Thanks for the joke. I assume all the Soviet bloc countries were like this. Having lived in Romania during its communist years, it seemed that every single person who was not a communist wanted to leave or at least thought about it. After my parents managed to get out and get to the US, we met a lot of others from various Eastern European countries as well as Russia who all had pretty incredible stories of escape. I think for others who had not been there, it's incredibly difficult to imagine the conditions that would lead people, including people with families and small children, to literally risk their lives (or at least torture and jail) to get out, oftentimes without their children, not knowing if they would ever make it or see their family ever again. If there is a "hell," I doubt it's worse than communism.

Another aspect rarely in the spotlight is the fate of the close family members of those that left successfully.

Communist, totalitarian, fascist, they're all just variations of thugocracy.

The US government operates a surveillance infrastructure beyond the wildest wet dreams of the Stasi and their ilk, beyond all practical oversight. It attracts people to work for it who think that's a good thing, including the lack of oversight. We're expected to trust them. We know that secrecy promotes laziness, and is used to hide ineptness, incomptence, greed and crime.

Some are no doubt outright thugs. Some probably believe the infrastructure as it exists and is evolving is a good thing. Either way, they're burning the village to save it, and they're using the Constitution as tinder.

This is an invalid comparison: the US government, unlike the Stasi, doesn't pay your neighbors to spy on you, doesn't interrogate your wife and children about you, doesn't bug your home without a good reason, and doesn't even record your calls (only the meta data).

Neither would the Stasi if they had this. They would do exactly what the US is doing. Modern surveillance has eliminated the middleman. "Come work for the NSA and disrupt surveillance!"

Here's a joke told in the movie The Lives of Others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8vDQaAYaQg

I think I saw the movie on Vudu. It's a very moving story about the secret police, and the people they spy on. Really, watch it. As others have said, we're not so far away from this in time, and there are many, many people who lived through it.

It's not an exaggeration. You're assuming that current authorities are interested in and have the capabilities to prevent the criminals and traceable crimes you speak of and that there is an ongoing, massive effort to do so. For most crimes, this isn't currently the case, at least in the US, even though the data is being collected. Right now, only high profile cases get this treatment (think Boston marathon bombing) and there is generally no problem solving those. It could be the case that this starts to be applied for victimless petty crimes (the favorite here in the US to lock up people on) and thought crimes soon as it was in the Soviet bloc countries. I wouldn't be surprised as this stupid idea that all infractions of criminal code (formerly called crimes, but that implies malicious conduct which is not the case for most infractions in the US) can be solved and should be punished is pretty popular in the US (tough on crime attitudes), despite ignoring the fact that almost all major positive social change comes from criminals (civil rights movement, gay rights movement, cannabis legalization, etc.). I'd like to say that the police in the US do not have the same nature and motivations as their communist equivalents, but the only real difference is the size of the population and those pesky bill of rights amendments. So really, for practical purposes, only the size of the population.

> [...] and those pesky bill of rights amendments.

Have you read the constitutions of East Germany or the Soviet Union (or of modern day mainland China)? They have these rights on paper, too.

You should read up on some of the released data where someone or a family was under surveillance. They had teams of people listening and watching absolutely everything.

I'm convinced one of the factors that collapsed these totalitarian societies was the sheer amount of manpower and infrastructure that went into watching their own citizens. If for no other reason than it was a counterproductive waste of resources.

If they had access to the types of data collection available today they would have caught a lot more people. Of that there can be no doubt.

> 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

I've heard stories about police in the US doing this while looking for drugs.

Doesn't even have to be at the border. If a SWAT team in the US does a no-knock entry on a residence, but gets the address wrong, do you think that they pay for any damage from their forced entry?

Yes, of course they do. Why on earth would you imagine they wouldn't?

Because the victims don't have the resources to arrange legal help, is one possible reason.

If you know of an area in the USA where the police have the capability to admit a fault, or punish bad apples in the force, please let me know because I'd like to move there.

While stories of cops being fired or prosecuted are few, I have never seen a press release saying 'we fouled up and the settlement we offered has been accepted.'

Actually there are many stories like this. German newspaper Der Spiegel once had a whole series of articles.

My favorite is about two guys escaping from East Germany an surf boards[1]. They built their own equipment, they never surfed before but still successfully crossed 70 km Baltic Sea in about 4 hours.

The article link is just Google translated, the photo gallery is also interesting[2]. It has images from the trip of the surfer guys as well as other escapes including the balloon of Strelzyk und Wetzel.

[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

[2]http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/spektakulaere-mauerfluchte...

Thanks for the link! I am not the author of the article, but I am the Managing Editor of the site and I worked with the author in getting it ready.

The funnest part was exchanging emails with one of the fellows involved (Günter Wetzel). His English is poor and my German is rustier than a tetanus factory, but with the help of Google Translate we were able to stumble through a conversation. He ended up sending me scans of a bunch of photos from his personal collection, several of which appear in the article (though a few required some restoration). Günter's a swell guy.

Escape by swimming caught on camera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E

My father got thrown out.

My uncle was in prison because he wanted to leave and after his release the administration told his family (my father, my aunt, my uncle and their parents) they should leave on the next day. They grabbed everything they could carry, packed it in their car and got out.

I always wonder... How did they start a life from scratch in another country? Without a job and roof for a few days you can quickly turn into a poorness cycle.

Obviously they were supported by the FDR's welfare system. To this day, ending up without a roof over your head is very rare without other problems like substance abuse or untreated mental illness.

The west was extremely good about helping those who escaped the East.

There were programs in place that helped displaced persons – including refugees from the GDR – to start a new life [1]. This included direct financial aid, loans, and even (some) compensation for property that was left behind.

[1] The Lastenausgleichsgesetz, or Equalization of Burdens Law: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26090

As far as I know, they had a house when I was born (1985) and they left east Germany around 1980.

Reminds me of the story of German actor Thomas Kretschmann (you might know him from playing Baron von Strucker in Avengers: Age of Ultron & Captain America: Winter Soldier). From his Wikipedia page: "At the age of 19, he fled East Germany and began a month-long trek to West Germany to escape the East German state. During this trek, part of his finger was lost but surgically reattached. Kretschmann crossed four borders (Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria) with nothing other than his passport and the equivalent of $100 in his possession." Pretty incredible!

There's a book[1] written by a Russian guy in the US about his efforts to escape from the USSR by... swimming the ocean! It's a highly entertaining book, although there's a chapter in which he describes his incarceration in a Soviet mental facility, and that one is pretty gruesome.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B0006...

Another escape story is Bernd Boettger, who built a mini submarine:

http://www.hisutton.com/The%20Escape%20of%20Bernd%20Boettger...

The toggle animation combined with the click at the beginning of the audio is wonderful. Anybody know any non-game UIs with great sound like that? They're pretty rare but it could be cool if they come back in really subtle ways. Off the top of my head I think of iPod scroll wheel, iOS keyboard, and Facebook message alert sound. The first 2 are extremely subtle and well done, alert sounds are kind of just a necessary evil.

If you're into this type of UI perfectionism, I recently read a book on the subject called 'Microinteractions' which I highly recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Microinteractions-Full-Color-Designing...

They give examples of designers using sound to enhance interactions. For example, slot machine designers make sure there are sounds every time the user interacts with the machine. The sounds and music also get louder and louder as the game goes on - to heighten the excitement and get the person addicted to that rush. One of the reasons why slot machines bring in more money than the movie or video game industries.

Website designers should definitely utilize this more often!

If you like this story, you'll love this one:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspys...

All ingredients hackers will find interesting:

Surveillance, suspense, number stations, encryption, a human touch - and on top it's true as well.

Amazing read.

It's a great story.

The introduction though - this took place in 1979. The Marshall plan was a limited program in the immediate postwar era. The rise of the West German economy was much more to do with the liberalization of the economy, restriction on government and of course the personal economic, speech and actual freedoms of the West Germans. By 1979 they were already exporting products to the USA and everywhere else by the container load. 'Mercedes Benz' by Janis Joplin was released in 1970 - the West German economy was in good shape by 1979, all from the work of the West German people.

Another story of escape from East Germany that took place in 1972.

http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memories/read-contributions/...

I would recommend everybody to take some interest in the 'damninteresting' podcasts. They are absolutely fabulous.

If you donate a bit, you get 8+hours of stories like this.

I'm only a third of the way through the story, but I'm struck by the contrast between the intro's description of poverty in East Germany, and this family's ability to procure such vast amounts of fabric, and they fact they owned a car.

Naila resident here. Ask me if you want to know something :P

How far did the wall / barrier go? Could it be walked around? Were there any weak spots in obscure fields in the countryside?

It went all the way through. While The Wall means the border that separated West Berlin from the East, there was a deadly border dividing all of Eastern Germany from the West.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Green_Belt

> However, the Soviets were still angry with the Germans for having done so much damage to their homeland in the Second World War three decades earlier, so they did not care about East Germany’s bleak economic prospects.

Not true. East Germany was socialism's window to the west so they were supposed to look their best all the time. As a result, they had the best lives in the Soviet Bloc. The rest of us had it much worse.

In fact in the very early days young people fed up with their nazi parents actually moved to the East to start something new. While the Soviets let East Germans build a pipeline for free once in a while, it was not generally their intention to let them suffer economically. Communism managed to do this on its own.

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