7 May 1973 · Hidden in vehicles
A Bauknecht driver is caught at Drewitz with East Germans hidden in his vehicle
Karl Glaser, a driver for the Bauknecht company of Baden-Baden, was arrested at Drewitz on the transit route into West Berlin while trying to take East Germans hidden in his vehicle.
On 7 May 1973 the GDR control at the Drewitz crossing arrested Karl Glaser, a West German born in 1938 who worked as a driver for the Bauknecht company in Baden-Baden, travelling on the transit route from West Germany to West Berlin. According to the Stasi report he was trying to take East Germans hidden in the vehicle he was driving.
He and the East Germans were charged with illegal border crossing. The same report covers a West Berliner, Werner Hildebrandt, arrested at Marienborn the day before on the route to West Germany. It does not say how many people were hidden or what kind of vehicle each man drove.
Sources
Whose account is this? Told from a GDR record only: documents of the GDR’s police, Stasi or border troops. No other account of the event is cited.
GDR records
- Information Nr. 422/73 über die Verhinderung der Ausschleusung von Bürgern der DDR in die BRD bzw. nach WestberlinDDR im Blick (Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv)
Facts checked against the sources: November 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “A Bauknecht driver is caught at Drewitz with East Germans hidden in his vehicle”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/karl-glaser-transit-drewitz-1973/ (accessed [date]).
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