The Swiss embassy cook's Mini: caught at Bornholmer Straße

Peter Gross, a Swiss who took up a post as cook to the Swiss ambassador in East Berlin in autumn 1973, met Christa Feurich, a young pharmacy engineer from East Berlin, in a dance bar. His Austin Mini carried red plates beginning 'CY', marking technical staff of an embassy, and such cars were let through the crossings unchecked. Once, he let her climb into the boot in a quiet side street and drove through the foreigners' crossing at Checkpoint Charlie without the car being searched. According to the Berliner Zeitung, he dropped her on the Kurfürstendamm and drove back to fetch another acquaintance; after a weekend in West Berlin he took Christa Feurich back to East Berlin in the boot, while the second woman stayed in the West.

The Stasi opened a case on staff of the Swiss embassy in November 1974. Two men called Dieter and Peter, whom Gross had met after a car breakdown, were Stasi informers who reported on him. When Christa Feurich climbed into the boot again on 1 February 1975 to go to West Berlin for good, the trap was set: at the Bornholmer Straße crossing Gross was told to open the boot, and both were arrested.

The GDR sentenced Gross to five years and his fiancée to four and a half years; they served their time in Bautzen II. They were released in May 1978 (the Berliner Zeitung gives 16 May) and married six months later. The Gedenkstätte Bautzen told their story in the 2011 exhibition 'Der Fall Gross'.