Berlin Wall Escapes1961–1989

14 October 1972 · Hidden in vehicles

A head waiter hidden in a car trailer at Drewitz

Two West German helpers, one a Free University student, tried to bring a 45-year-old head waiter from Friedrichshagen into West Berlin hidden in a single-axle car trailer. The Stasi says the pair had already smuggled out several people over the transit routes.

Black-and-white photo: rows of cars queue between white control booths under a large steel canopy; uniformed officers stand at the booths and one bends to speak to the driver of an Opel in the foreground.
GDR controllers checking transit traffic at the Drewitz crossing near Potsdam on 31 March 1972, the same year the trailer was stopped here Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L0331-0005 / Hartmut Reiche. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de

At about 11.15 p.m. on 14 October 1972 controllers at the Drewitz crossing, on the autobahn into West Berlin, arrested two West Germans. One, born in 1943, was a driver for the firm Stahl-Musik GmbH in West Berlin; the other was Peter Bieber, born in 1945, a student at the Free University. In a single-axle trailer behind their car they had hidden a GDR citizen, a head waiter born in 1927 who worked at the Klubhaus 'Erich Weinert' in Berlin-Köpenick and lived in Friedrichshagen.

According to the Stasi, the two had already used the transit routes and various transit vehicles to smuggle several GDR citizens into West Germany since the Transit Agreement came into force. Arrest warrants were issued against both helpers and the man they had tried to bring out.

The attempt is one of a series the Stasi reported from the Berlin crossings in the same week. The others were an arrest at Bornholmer Straße on 13 October and one at Sonnenallee on the evening of 14 October.

Sources

  1. Jahrgang 1972: Versuchte Ausschleusung durch BRD-Bürger (2) – Information Nr. 939/72, 17 October 1972Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)

Spotted an error, or know more about this story? Email us a correction or addition

Related escapes

  1. 8 October 1972 – 9 October 1972

    Two cars stopped in one night at Heinrich-Heine-Straße

    Within three hours GDR controllers at the Heinrich-Heine-Straße crossing stopped two cars. In one was a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Lichtenberg with four West German helpers; the other carried a young lathe operator and a couple from Hamburg.

    Hidden in vehicles · Stopped · Mitte / Kreuzberg

  2. 4 March 1975

    Escape helper Hartmut Richter caught at Drewitz with his sister in the boot

    After smuggling 33 people out in the boot of his car, escape helper Hartmut Richter was stopped at the Drewitz crossing with his own sister and her fiancé hidden inside, and sentenced to 15 years.

    Hidden in vehicles · Stopped · Potsdam

  3. 9 March 1975

    A family of three in the boot of a West Berlin car at Drewitz

    Three members of one family lay hidden in the boot of a car with West Berlin plates. At the Drewitz crossing the Stasi found them, arrested them and then made them climb back in so the scene could be photographed.

    Hidden in vehicles · Stopped · Potsdam (Drewitz)

  4. 5 October 1972

    A West Berlin police sergeant with a woman under his back seat

    Shortly after midnight a West Berliner tried to drive a mother of four from Oberschöneweide out under the back seat of his car. Only when he was identified did the Stasi realise he was a serving West Berlin police officer.

    Hidden in vehicles · Stopped · Treptow-Köpenick / Neukölln