26 August 1966 – 27 August 1966 · Swimming
Hartmut Richter swims the Teltow Canal
Eighteen-year-old Hartmut Richter spent about four hours in the Teltow Canal, swimming roughly a kilometre past the border defences to Dreilinden in West Berlin.
Hartmut Richter, born in 1948 in Glindow, had already tried to flee once: in January 1966 he was caught at the Czechoslovak–Austrian border and in May received a ten-month suspended sentence from the Potsdam district court.
In the night of 26 to 27 August 1966 the 18-year-old entered the Teltow Canal at Stahnsdorf and swam along the left bank towards Albrechts Teerofen and the Dreilinden checkpoint. According to his own account he needed about four hours for roughly one kilometre, and he lost consciousness after reaching safety.
He then travelled the world as a ship's steward. From 1972 he used the transit routes to smuggle 33 people out of the GDR in his car.
On the night of 3 to 4 March 1975 he was arrested at the Drewitz crossing while trying to bring out his sister and her fiancé, and was sentenced in December 1975 to 15 years. The Federal Republic bought his release in October 1980; he later worked as a guide at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen memorial.
Sources
- Hartmut Richter: 33 Menschen zur Flucht verholfen, dann inhaftiert, 4. März 1975Chronik der Mauer
- Flucht aus der DDR durch den TeltowkanalDer Tagesspiegel
- Hartmut Richter (Biogramm)Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen
- Hartmut RichterWikipedia (de)
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