30 March 1973 · Hidden in vehicles
A mother and her four-year-old son in a prepared van at Drewitz
Four West Berliners were arrested at Drewitz with an East Berlin academy employee and her four-year-old son hidden in a small van that two of them had bought and prepared; the other two were to use a car as a feeder vehicle and cover the operation.
At about 10.20 and 11.40 p.m. on 30 March 1973 the GDR control at the Drewitz crossing arrested four West Berliners, born between 1940 and 1953, as they tried to take a woman from Berlin-Johannisthal, born in 1944, who worked in the foreign department of the Academy of Sciences' Institute for Solar-Terrestrial Physics, and her four-year-old son to West Berlin hidden in a small van.
According to the Stasi report two of the four had bought the van and prepared it as the escape vehicle, while the other two were to cover the operation with a car used as a feeder vehicle ("Zubringerfahrzeug"). The four were charged with attempted "staatsfeindlicher Menschenhandel" and the mother with attempting to leave the GDR illegally.
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. 316/73 über die Verhinderung der Ausschleusung von DDR-Bürgern nach WestberlinDDR im Blick (Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv)
Facts checked against the sources: November 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “A mother and her four-year-old son in a prepared van at Drewitz”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/mother-son-small-van-drewitz-1973/ (accessed [date]).
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