2 October 1977 · Hidden in vehicles · Staaken
Two young women in a car boot at Staaken
A West Berliner working for an escape-helper group tried to take two women in their early twenties out in his boot through the Staaken crossing – one of them the daughter of an SED factory director, who wanted to marry her Turkish boyfriend in West Berlin.
On 2 October 1977 the Stasi stopped a car at the Staaken crossing on the Heerstraße. Its driver, a West Berliner, was working on behalf of an escape-helper organisation; in his boot were two young East Berlin women, a 21-year-old from Friedrichshain and a 22-year-old nursery teacher from Karlshorst.
According to the Stasi, the nursery teacher was the daughter of a factory director and of an official of the Mitte district council, both SED members. She said she had been in a relationship since 1973 with a Turkish driver working for Mercedes-Benz in West Berlin; they wanted to marry there, and in September 1977 he had set her escape in motion. She told investigators that her parents knew neither of the relationship nor of her plan.
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
- Jahrgang 1977: Verhinderung der Flucht von zwei Frauen an der GÜST Staaken – Information Nr. 616/77, 4 October 1977Stasi-Unterlagen-Archiv (DDR im Blick)
Facts checked against the sources: September 2026
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Cite this page
Berlin Experiences, “Two young women in a car boot at Staaken”, Berlin Wall Escapes, 2026, https://berlinwallescapes.com/escapes/staaken-two-women-car-boot-1977/ (accessed [date]).
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