29 December 1972 · Hidden in vehicles
Ellen Thiemann's escape car stopped at the border
The journalist Ellen Thiemann planned to leave the GDR with her eleven-year-old son Carsten in a specially prepared car. On 29 December 1972 she and her husband were arrested and she was later sentenced to three years and five months; after the Wall fell she learned from her Stasi files that her husband had been an informer.
Ellen Thiemann, born in 1937, was a journalist and married to the sports journalist Klaus Thiemann. According to the Zeitzeugen-Portal she wanted to flee the GDR in a specially prepared car. Orte der Repression says she was arrested in 1972 during an escape attempt with her eleven-year-old son Carsten; German Wikipedia says the escape helper's car, in which Carsten was to be taken out first, was stopped at the Chausseestraße/Invalidenstraße crossing. Der Spiegel wrote that security officials were already waiting at the barrier.
On 29 December 1972 Klaus and Ellen Thiemann were arrested for 'preparing flight from the Republic'. Her husband, whom she covered in the interrogations, was released after a short time. After six months of remand in the Stasi prison at Hohenschönhausen she was sentenced on 22 May 1973 to three years and five months and sent to the women's prison at Hoheneck. Released to East Berlin on 29 May 1975, she left for West Berlin through Friedrichstraße station on 19 December 1975 with the help of the lawyer Wolfgang Vogel; Wikipedia and Orte der Repression say her son left with her.
After the Wall fell she found in her Stasi files that her husband had worked as an informer, IM 'Mathias'. The Zeitzeugen-Portal summarises her finding that it was he who betrayed her escape plans.
Sources
- Die Quelle ist zuverlässigDer Spiegel
- Rezension: Ellen Thiemann, Der Feind an meiner SeiteArchiv für Sozialgeschichte (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung)
- Erfahrungen: Ellen ThiemannOrte der Repression in SBZ und DDR
- Zeitzeugin Ellen Thiemann: Fluchtversuch im AutoversteckZeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
- Zeitzeugin Ellen Thiemann: Stasi-Akteneinsicht nach dem MauerfallZeitzeugen-Portal (Haus der Geschichte)
- Ellen ThiemannWikipedia (de)
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