Escaping the red menace

ejmaztec

I've always been intrigued by the clever and not so clever methods used by dissidents to get out from under the communist thumb. Nowadays of course, you can saunter across the border, from say the Czech Republic into Germany, without a care in the world, whereas pre-1990 you'd stand a good chance of ending up like the guy in the first photo.:(
http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n8/htdocs/border-czechs-997.php?page=1



The chap in this didn't make it either.:(

Under the auspices of manufacturing an “earth cutter,” Vladimír Benesv combined the frame of a Wartburg 331 automobile, two gasoline engines, two axles, tin plating, four wheels, tractor tires, an ordinary 12-volt battery, and a fake wooden cannon with the goal of shredding lots of barbed wire. Vladimír succeeded in getting his Frankenmobile up and running, but both motors failed near the border. His machine then became a prized trophy of the secret police.

Morlar

There was also a famous hot air baloon escape that springs to mind, and I can't find a link to it but I believe a light airplane landed on a street in west Germany at one point - anyone else remember that one ?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947451,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44104565/ns/world_news-europe/t/escape-east-berlin-wedding-dress-hand/#.Tm3s9-yHq-0

Found this article too, which is pretty interesting.

Decades later, stories emerge of another escape route out of East Germany

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/world/europe/24iht-bulgaria.4.11382073.html


By Nicholas Kulish


MUNICH — Two dangling strands of barbed wire have haunted Olaf Hetze for more than a quarter-century, since his failed attempt to escape from the Communist bloc, not by going over the Berlin Wall but around it, by a little-known route through Bulgaria.

Thanks to the work of a German researcher, the full extent of the escape attempts through Bulgaria - and the dangers - is just now coming to light.

At least 4,500 people from various Communist countries tried to flee to the West over the Bulgarian border during the Cold War, said the researcher, Stefan Appelius, a professor of political science at the University of Oldenburg. He estimated that at least 100 of them were killed, but no official investigation has ever been undertaken.

Hetze said he believed that he and Barbara Hille might have made it if he had managed to cover their tracks better, trimming the loose ends after cutting the top wire of the border fence.

If he had, Hetze said at their home in Munich, he might never have seen the shooting stars of tracer bullets arcing across the night sky, or had to watch his girlfriend twist in the air and fall to the ground, blood rushing out of a life-threatening wound to her shoulder.

Olaf and Barbara Hetze, now married and with two grown sons, had decided their escape would be easier where the attention of the security forces in their native East Germany was not fixed. They would make their getaway in Bulgaria, a choice vacation destination in the east, with sunny Black Sea beaches and breathtaking mountain scenery.

"They had the southern mentality," Hetze said of the Bulgarians. "Everything seemed more relaxed. And technologically they were nowhere near the same level" of security as the Germans were on their border.

What they did not know was that thousands of their East German compatriots had the same thought. But the Bulgarian government, with the engagement of the East German secret police, the Stasi, was ready to guard its borders.

Appelius's investigation of escapes through Bulgaria - described by experts as an otherwise all-but-undocumented "blind spot" - is trailblazing and almost entirely self-financed.

Hans-Hermann Hertle, who leads research into deaths along the Berlin Wall at the Center for Research on Contemporary History in Potsdam, said that he was impressed with Appelius's work and that the center hoped to cooperate with him on Bulgaria once its study of the wall was complete.

Appelius stumbled upon this history in 2005, when he was researching German government archives and came across the autopsy report of a young German man who had been killed in Bulgaria. "I was really shocked about this," Appelius said. "I never heard about such a case before. And I thought if there was one case of this sort there were probably more of them."

The stories he uncovered were harrowing. A young couple from Leipzig were killed in 1975 by a hail of bullets, the man shot 37 times and the woman 25 times, all at close range. The last known fatality, Michael Weber, 19, was on July 7, 1989, barely four months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Helped by volunteers in Bulgaria but stymied, Appelius said, by the reluctance of the authorities there to dig into unflattering history, he has found evidence of 845 escape attempts, including 18 fatalities in which he has been able to clearly identify the victims. He said he based his estimate of more than 100 fatalities in part on interviews with Bulgarian pathologists and former border guards.

By comparison, the Center for Research on Contemporary History in Potsdam says that 134 people were killed trying to escape through the Berlin Wall, though the research is continuing and that figure is fiercely contested by those who say it should be higher.

Over all, experts say, more than 1,000 people died trying to flee East Germany.

The Stasi tried to cover up some border deaths, sealing coffins and declaring that the dead had been killed in traffic accidents. Until 1975, the Bulgarian authorities often hastily buried the bodies of victims in the border zones where they fell. The current Bulgarian government has not been forthcoming, and the German government has not pressed the recent European Union member to open up.

"It's not just German citizens but people from lots of other countries - Czechs, Poles," said a worker at a Bulgarian military hospital in Sofia who helped Appelius by hunting through archived autopsy reports. He declined to give his name for fear of losing his job.

Access to the files was cut off in February 2007 after an article by Appelius appeared. It was just such an article that caught the Hetzes' attention. It revived memories of their ordeal, "sending an ice-cold chill down our backs," as they wrote to Appelius in June 2006.

In September 1978, Barbara was at a party in a discothèque, where she was asking boys in her disarming manner whether any of them had an extra motorcycle helmet. Olaf, it turned out, had two. They began riding together in the mountainous area near Dresden that Germans call the Saxon Switzerland.

In many ways, Barbara and Olaf could not have been more different. She came from a family opposed to the East German regime. His stepfather was a party secretary. But Olaf was disenchanted. He had worked on a site where a blast furnace for metal had not been completed in time for the official unveiling. Officials trucked in finished steel and re-routed steam to make the furnace appear operational. "Behind the curtains, that was the planned economy," he said. He decided to leave if he could.

Barbara was angry that the government would not allow her to pursue a career in historic preservation because of her politics. Still, she was unsure and a little afraid when Olaf asked her to flee with him. Ultimately she decided the risk was worth it.

She was 22 and he was 20 when they made their attempt. They were not foolhardy. They agreed that if they were discovered they would submit and believed that, at worst, they could end up in jail.

They tried to make their escape through the Rhodope Mountains along the Greek border, where, legend has it, Orpheus was born.

"It was a public secret. All the people knew that young Germans were coming to cross the border," said Bozhidar Hadzhidiev, 64, who said he was helping Appelius because he wanted a fuller accounting of the crimes of the Bulgarian regime.

If the Bulgarian border defenses lacked the latest technologies, as Olaf Hetze noted, they more than made up for it with an army of conscripted guards and informants. Even maps of the area near the border were purposefully incorrect or incomplete.

A plainclothes policeman stopped and questioned them when they were 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, from the border. They said they had become lost on their way to go hiking, but decided to leave their Trabant in an unobtrusive spot in the town of Rudozem. For the next two nights, they made their way on foot, sleeping during the day and walking at night.

They studied the patrols at what they thought was the border crossing for 24 hours before deciding at 11 p.m. on the clear, starry night of Aug. 17, 1980, to make their escape.

Olaf cut through the top wire of the fence because he had noticed electric cables at the bottom, possibly for an alarm signal. He boosted Barbara over the fence. With a running start he dove over, without first cutting off the excess wire hanging down - visible in the photographs kept in their Stasi file.

The oversight would hardly have mattered if they had crossed the border and were safely inside Greece. But they were still on the Bulgarian side of the border and had actually entered a forbidden zone where soldiers were under orders to fire at trespassers.

"We heard warning signals from far away, the howling of sirens," Olaf Hetze said. They heard dogs barking and ran through a riverbed to try to hide their scent. "When I turned around," he said, "I saw some tracer ammunition flying by us and at the same time I saw my wife rising up into the air, her body stretched out horizontally, and then falling flatly into the river."

He stayed by her side, tearing his shirt into makeshift bandages. When the border guards caught them, they fired bullets into the ground at his feet and let their dog sink its teeth into his thigh.

They were each sentenced to two years and five months in prison. Barbara was released after a little more than a year. The West German government paid a bounty to free her from East Germany. Olaf was freed the following year.

ejmaztec

This guy seemed to have winged it on pure luck, and his family had an interesting pre WW2 and WW2 history - out of the frying pan into the fire.

This is only part of the info on the site:
http://www.kamil-kubik.com/other/artist/escape_czech_2/index.html

"In those days, two things happened if you were caught trying to escape," Kamil said. "You either were shot to death or put away for life in prison." Kamil somehow managed to avoid capture at the busy Prague station by covering his face with a newspaper and pretending to sleep on a bench. When his train arrived at midnight, Kamil boarded safely.
Kamil had no time to relax, though. Soldiers on west-bound trains had orders to look out for any suspicious man or woman, and Kamil - sitting alone with his pack and nervous, darting eyes - was as blatant an escapee as there could be. He had no papers and no prepared story other than "picnicking alone in the country." Fortunately, two girls Kamil's age realized what he was up to and decided to help him. When the soldiers came to Kamil's car, they saw Kamil talking with the two pretty girls, whom the men knew, and walked on without a second thought.
"Idiots are sometimes lucky," Kamil said.
The girls reached their stop eventually, and Kamil had to transfer to a new train about 25 miles east of the West German border. Czech police had been given orders to jail anyone so close to the border without papers. Kamil's highly improbable plan was to get out at the train's final stop - Zelezny Brod (also known as Iron Ford) - and sneak into Germany while the Czech patrol were taking their midday repast. Luckily, a middle-aged couple joined Kamil in his car and convinced him to alter his plans.

The conversation went something like this:
Couple: "Where are you going?"
Kamil: "I am going to Iron Ford to look at the historic sights."
Couple: "You do not want to go to Iron Ford. There is nothing historical there. Plus, it is very unsafe to visit with so many dangerous people there trying to escape. It is good for us that there are plenty of border guards who will arrest anyone without papers.
"You should exit two stops before Iron Ford because there are a lot of things of historical interest there. But be careful you don't cross the borders, as they are very close."
The couple had baked a batch of scones that morning, and they gave all they had to Kamil, as well as hurriedly scrawling a description of the area. Kamil got off at the stop the couple had suggested and snuck into the forest undetected. He made his way to a dark, sinister-looking lake at the base of a hill. On the other side of the lake stood a building, which looked like a hotel to Kamil. He then rested on a rock and began to eat the scones, reflecting that perhaps this particular spot may have been the most undesirable place to holiday in the world. At that moment, a group of border guards with dogs walked from the building and spotted Kamil.
Kamil dropped the scones and took off running up the hill into the woods, tearing through the thick forest without looking back at his pursuers. The branches yanked his coat away, and his mandolin - strapped around his neck with a string - banged hard against his chest as he ran. "I had to race through the trees like a deer," Kamil said. "I think I broke every world sprint record."
Finally, Kamil came to several machine gun towers, which were in the middle of a clearing. There was no way to get past the towers without being seen. Just then, a large storm cloud rolled through the forest. Kamil ran inside the cloud through the clearing and past the towers to the trees on the other side.
Safe once more, Kamil hiked in the rain until he came across some cows with markings on their hooves. The couple on the second train had told Kamil about a group of German farmers whose cows would wander across the Czech border. Kamil knew he was close to freedom.
Using his compass and skills he had acquired as a Boy Scout and forester, Kamil navigated his way west toward West Germany and the U.S. military zone. Analyzing maps in later years, Kamil estimated the trek at 20 miles, but without a watch then he had no way to judge time or distance. He did not realize he had safely crossed the border until he came to a small village and saw a group of children wearing liederhosen.
"It was a miracle," Kamil said. "I was praying when I hid underneath the newspaper. I was praying when I ran from the guards through the forest. I was praying when I followed the cows.
"I promised God I would do all sorts of things, if I could just make it through safely. I haven't yet done all I have promised, but I will before I die."
Kamil's elation at finding freedom soon turned to hardship, though. He was an 18-year-old man with no possessions and no family he could contact for help. To make matters worse, the U.S. occupation army placed him in a refugee camp, where people were pressured to return to their home countries and face the punishment for escaping.

Morlar

I loved this part

Luckily, a middle-aged couple joined Kamil in his car and convinced him to alter his plans.

The conversation went something like this:
Couple: "Where are you going?"
Kamil: "I am going to Iron Ford to look at the historic sights."
Couple: "You do not want to go to Iron Ford. There is nothing historical there. Plus, it is very unsafe to visit with so many dangerous people there trying to escape. It is good for us that there are plenty of border guards who will arrest anyone without papers.
"You should exit two stops before Iron Ford because there are a lot of things of historical interest there. But be careful you don't cross the borders, as they are very close."

ejmaztec

Morlar wrote: »

I loved this part

Sounds like a nudge-nudge-wink-wink to me.:D

Morlar

Totally ! Sounds like they were being helpful while covering their asses.

Found that light plane one :

http://ddr-luftwaffe.blogspot.com/2008/12/was-ist-aus-hans-dieter-reinkensmeier.html

It's in German but that seems to be the one I was thinking of. The unusual thing is he went West->East !!!!

There are several other stories of pilots ejecting from migs & such (incomplete list) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cold_War_pilot_defections

Soviet Union

Soviet pilots also defected and the most famous involved defecting with the most advanced jet fighters at the time, including:

On October 9, 1948, Piotr Pirogov and Anatoly Barsov defected by flying their Tu-2 bomber from the USSR to Linz, Austria, where they were granted asylum by the American occupational authorities. Barsov later returned to the USSR a year later.
In 1961, a disappointed Soviet pilot flew his Sukhoi Su-9 interceptor to Abadan, Iran. Only very sketchy details about this incident are known even today, but the plane and the pilot were quickly picked up by officers of the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) of the United States DoD. After being disassembled within 24 hours the Su-9 was transported to the USA, while the pilot followed shortly after.
On May 22, 1967, Lieutenant Vasily Ilych Epatko, flew his MiG-17 from East Germany where he was stationed, to West Germany and ejected in Dillingen about 20 miles northwest of Augsburg. He was granted asylum by the United States.[28]
On May 7, 1973, Lieutenant Yevgeny Vronsky, flew his Sukhoi Su-7 from East Germany where he was stationed, to West Germany and ejected near Wolfenbüttel. The wreckage of the aircraft was returned to the Soviet Union, but German authorities let Vronsky stay in the country.
On September 6, 1976, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected with his Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 to Hakodate, Japan. After being inspected by the Foreign Technology Division of the United States DoD, the Mig-25 was released to Japan who then returned it in pieces to the Soviet Union.
On May 20, 1989, Captain Alexander Zuyev defected with his Mikoyan MiG-29 to Trabzon, Turkey. In his autobiography Fulcrum: A Top Gun Pilot's Escape from the Soviet Empire (ISBN 0-446-51648) Zuyev reported that the USSR quickly did a deal with the Turkish government upon his defection, and the MiG-29 was returned to the Russians. According to Zuyev himself, the first words he said as he stepped out of the cockpit after his successful defection were, "I will be an American!". He was shot in the escape and was airlifted out of Turkey by a U.S. C-130 that same night, to Ramstein AB. He shared many stories with the crew that are later expounded upon in his book.

Odd that according to Wiki there were none from the direction of Baltics to the Nordics.

Here is the unusual list of West-East defections (if that's the right word) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Western_Bloc_defectors

Here is a better list of East-West:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Bloc_defectors