1964 – November 1967 · Hidden in vehicles
The Cadillac with a dashboard hideout
Escape helper Burkhart Veigel used a Cadillac DeVille with a hiding place behind the dashboard to smuggle refugees out of the GDR for about three years without being caught.
Burkhart Veigel, a medical student from West Berlin, worked as an escape helper from October 1961, first with the Girrmann group and later with his own group. Besides digging tunnels he converted cars into escape vehicles.
His best-known vehicle was a Cadillac DeVille, converted together with Hasso Herschel. The hiding place was behind the dashboard, with room to hide an adult whose lower legs were bent into the right front wing.
According to auto motor und sport, the car was used from the end of 1964 until November 1967 to bring out around 200 people, and the hiding place was never discovered. The operation ended because of new radiation-based screening at the border.
Sources
- Burkhart VeigelWikipedia (de)
- 30 Jahre Wiedervereinigung: Trick-Autos der Fluchthelferauto motor und sport
- Der Fluchthelfer Burkhart Veigel: Endstation FreiheitStuttgarter Zeitung
- Flucht im Cadillacberlin-mauer.de
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