East German refugee eligible for compensation over dramatic escape
A man who fled East Germany in 1988 will be eligible to receive compensation for trauma he experienced as a result of the escape, Germany’s highest civil court ruled on Monday.
Lower courts had previously ruled against the man’s case, saying the violence of the GDR regime was not directed solely at him, but at the entire population of the Communist state. He was therefore not individually disadvantaged and entitled to compensation.
The man’s dramatic escape lasted more than 12 hours. Along with his brother, he set out for the West Berlin border on a foggy night. The brothers approached the highly secure Teltow-Sigridshorst border area on the south-western outskirts of the city.
Read more: Remembering last Berlin Wall victim Chris Gueffroy
They crouched for several hours in the mud, before cutting through some fences and climbing over others with a ladder, triggering an alarm.
To protect themselves from barbed wire they were wearing several layers of clothing. One of the brothers, 26 years old, was tangled up in the barbed wire of the final obstacle and found by guards.
They threatened him with machine guns, but did not fire. He was eventually able to free himself and they both escaped to a nearby US army barracks.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Across the Baltic in a dinghy
Not everyone in the former East Germany waited until the Wall came down to go west. In 1977, a truck driver from Dresden daringly set out with his wife and daughter in a tiny rubber boat across the Baltic Sea. Fifteen hours later, a fisherman took them on board his trawler and brought them safely to Lübeck in the West. It should be noted, however, that many others died trying to flee by sea.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
The other shore
In 1974, biologist Carmen Rohrbach swam out from the GDR into the Baltic with her boyfriend, a rubber boat in tow. Before they could make it to Denmark, a search light went on. They released the boat and continued swimming. Captured by East German guards, Rohrbach then spent two years in prison. Today, she’s still an adventurer, traveling far and wide for her research and book-writing.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Swimming to freedom
Axel Mitbauer, a GDR national swim team member, used pure muscle to flee. In 1969, the 19-year-old swam across the Baltic Sea from Boltenhagen to Lübeck’s bay area when guards turned search lights off to allow them to cool. “I had one minute to cross both the first and second sandbanks,” he recalled. He smeared himself with masses of petroleum jelly to protect himself against the icy temperatures.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Ocean escape
Over 5,000 people tried to escape the GDR via the Baltic — by boat, air mattress, swimming or even submarine. At least 174 adults and children died in the endeavor. According to Bodo Müller, who wrote a book with his wife Christine entitled “Across the Baltic Sea to Freedom,” 901 people actually succeeded between the Berlin Wall’s construction in August 1961 and its fall on November 9, 1989.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Up from the depths
There were the more classic escape attempts, such as by this woman, who is pictured being pulled out of a West Berlin shaft in October 1964. The shaft led to an escape tunnel connecting East to West Berlin. One of several ingenious underground border crossings, 57 people escaped through the so-called “Tunnel 57” over two days before it was discovered in an East Berlin street.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Rear window
In September 1961, this woman first pushed her dog and then her shopping bag out of this window and into a rescue net provided by West German fire fighters. Though some people tried to pull her back into the building that stood on the border in East Berlin, she persisted and climbed out a back window to freedom in West Berlin.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Slaughterhouse 14
While most attempted escape by foot, thus risking being shot or stepping on mines, one group was exceptionally inventive. In September 1964, 14 East Germans, among them children, were smuggled across the border in a refrigerated truck as they lay under the carcasses of slaughtered pigs being transported to the West.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Up, up and away
Surely the most compelling of escape attempts was by hot air balloon. In September 1979, two daredevil families — including four children aged 2 to 15 — successfully floated across the sky from Pößneck, Thuringia to Naila, Bavaria, then situated eight kilometers (five miles) south of the Iron Curtain. They reached a height of 2,500 meters (8,200 ft.) in the homemade balloon.
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Compelling attempts to escape the GDR
Inspiring tales
That endeavor inspired both the 1982 British-American film, “Night Crossing,” as well as the 2018 thriller, “Balloon,” directed by Michael Herbig, which is out in German cinemas on September 27.
“He suffered mortal fear,” said Thomas Lerche, the lawyer representing the man. He said the experience deeply traumatized the man, leading to mental illness and a lifetime of distress.
The man said he suffers from being deeply suspicious, irritable, has hair-trigger temper fits and nightmares. For this, he was claiming vocational rehabilitation and a basic pension.
The high court determined that while the violence the GDR regime was directed at the entire population, border patrol security was another matter. “The use of force against a fleeing person is a very concrete measure against the individual,” the presiding judge said.
The court concluded that the man had “conclusively proven” that border security had harmed his health. The man will now be able to file claims for health care treatment covered by the state.
aw,jcg/amp (AFP, dpa)
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