10 ms·

Up in the Air: Escaping from East Germany

205 points by vinnyglennon 11y ago

nsns 11y ago
Escape by swimming caught on camera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E
BJBBB 11y ago
There is still much suspicion in Germany. Families still remember their 'missing' members. One the way home, stopped in Germany early 1991 to see a good friend. While sitting at sidewalk table, my friend abruptly arose and got in the face of another patron. Words were exchanged, and they went behind the building. My friend returned later, with blood on his sleeves and hands, with his pocket notebook out. With a grim smile, he indicated that he now has a "list of people to talk to...". The wounds of Germany will not heal until their people of my generation have been buried.
- y4mi 11y ago
  the wall fell in 1988. 3 years before your event. its been over 20 years since then - there is no real witch hunt or hostility anymore.
  - sdoering 11y ago
    Well it was on 9th of November 1989. Not 1988. But yeah, there is no witchhunt.
- Zenst 11y ago
  Yet much unrest in Germany due to massive migrant influx and why Germany who was pioneer within the EU to scap the borders is now looking at reintroducing them, whilst at the same time belittling other EU members for still having them as a means of migrant control. So with that, whole new generations will be carrying that mistrust torch and indeed how Ukraine was handled and Russian dealings still show a mistrust greater than the people who lived thru such times. The biggest impact though was the Stazi and a whole mistrust upon authority at some level still pertains and when the Snowden (NSAsceptic some could say given how the EU treats people who question things) was very much supported more in Germany and indeed more so than other countries in that area.
k__ 11y ago
My father got thrown out. My uncle was in prison because he wanted to leave and after his release the administration told his family (my father, my aunt, my uncle and their parents) they should leave on the next day. They grabbed everything they could carry, packed it in their car and got out.
- tajen 11y ago
  I always wonder... How did they start a life from scratch in another country? Without a job and roof for a few days you can quickly turn into a poorness cycle.
  - thomasz 11y ago
    Obviously they were supported by the FDR's welfare system. To this day, ending up without a roof over your head is very rare without other problems like substance abuse or untreated mental illness.
  - goodcanadian 11y ago
    The west was extremely good about helping those who escaped the East.
  - rbehrends 11y ago
    There were programs in place that helped displaced persons – including refugees from the GDR – to start a new life [1]. This included direct financial aid, loans, and even (some) compensation for property that was left behind. [1] The Lastenausgleichsgesetz, or Equalization of Burdens Law: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26090 http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26090
  - k__ 11y ago
    As far as I know, they had a house when I was born (1985) and they left east Germany around 1980.
jacquesm 11y ago
Super account of an extremely dangerous and imaginative way to escape the East. They were extremely lucky, the prevailing winds there are West-to-East. Every time I crossed back from East Germany into West Germany after spending time in Poland I had my car pretty much taken apart at the border (the head of the 'corridor', at a place called Helmstedt, if you drive by there today you can still see the watchtowers and the old border to the right of the highway) to make sure I wasn't hiding anybody in the strange bodywork of the car (a Citroen model DS which has a lot of weird curves and spaces). Very frustrating because the border guards would be very diligent about ripping everything up but they would definitely not help putting things back together again. One day I had my engine overheating on the Eastern side at the border and was greeted by rounds of tracer behind the car when I tried to back out of the cage that the car was in in search of water. Another time I got arrested at 'Checkpoint Charlie' by one Oberwachtmeister Krause because I wasn't supposed to be there (on the Eastern side). He was entirely correct that I shouldn't be there, the reason was that I'd helped a bunch of people that were stuck in their car (a Trabant, a small two stroke car with an extremely small engine that was prone to stop working for no particular reason) by the side of the road (East Germans were allowed the use of the corridor as well, but visitors and West Germans could not leave that road except with special permission) and I couldn't find my way back to the corridor. I had followed the signs back saying 'Berlin' but did not realize soon enough that this would not work. After many hours waiting and interviews and threats we were finally allowed to leave again. The Americans were quite surprised that a car with Dutch license plates approached from the East German side of the most guarded border in Europe, probably a first for them. No fond memories of the officials in 'The East', I hope their children and grandchildren will remind them periodically that they were part of the problem. Many of them went on to positions in the current German police force and military, not without resistance of their former West German colleagues who saw them (rightly) responsible for the many deaths on the East German side. Fortunately these families made it, many did not and it is good to remember that this was only a very few short years ago. Especially worth remembering given that if the East German authorities had had access to the kind of information that current governments have access to that these families likely would not have made it out at all and/or would have been killed in the attempt.
- dominotw 11y ago
peckrob 11y ago
Disney actually made a movie out of this; they touch on it briefly at the end of the article. I watched it as a kid in once in school. It was called "Night Crossing" [0]. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's on any streaming service, but if you look around you might be able to find a DVD copy somewhere. Also, as a side note, it's nice to see Damn Interesting on here. It's one of the better blogs out there even if they don't update as much as they used to. The article about the race to liquefy helium and chasing the lowest temperature ever was really, really good [1]. [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ [1] http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k/ http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k/
- weinzierl 11y ago
  Another movie that has an Escaping from East Germany story line is "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch_%28f...
- DamnInteresting 11y ago
  Thanks! I'm the founder of the site, and author of Absolute Zero is 0K. I wish we could post articles more frequently, but it's a spare-time-and-weekends project, and my spare time shrinks as I accumulate life responsibilities and such. And because I am the final editor I am a terrible bottleneck. I have hundreds--if not thousands--of other topics I want to write about. I am optimistic that one day I'll be able to afford to quit one of my days jobs and spend more time on Damn Interesting, which would help improve our posting frequency tremendously. In the meantime I sigh wistfully.
  - peckrob 11y ago
    Hey, thanks for all the great articles! I don't want to come across as ungrateful or anything; I've been a reader for years and I love your work. I put your blog in the same category as Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. They don't update super often, but when they do I know they're going to be good. :)
  - 11y ago
CroCroCro 11y ago
Naila resident here. Ask me if you want to know something :P
geoka9 11y ago
There's a book[1] written by a Russian guy in the US about his efforts to escape from the USSR by... swimming the ocean! It's a highly entertaining book, although there's a chapter in which he describes his incarceration in a Soviet mental facility, and that one is pretty gruesome. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B0006OX6UG http://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B0006...
willvarfar 11y ago
Another escape story is Bernd Boettger, who built a mini submarine: http://www.hisutton.com/The%20Escape%20of%20Bernd%20Boettger.html http://www.hisutton.com/The%20Escape%20of%20Bernd%20Boettger...
kuni-toko-tachi 11y ago
Required reading for every Bernie Sanders supporter who inhales the sickness of socialism and smells the sweetness of utopian fanatasies.
- nik61 11y ago
  I think you'll find that the behaviour of the East German Authorities has more in common with the beliefs of Mr Trump than those of Mr Sanders, but either way that's a cheap shot not worthy of democratic debate and stretches the point in either case.
  - ilaksh 11y ago
    The problem is that most communist societies have been authoritarian and there is ZERO acknowledgement of that fact in technocratic or technocommunist discussions.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I'm a mild Sanders supporter, and I see absolutely nothing relevant to him in this article. Would you care to elaborate?
  - afsina 11y ago
    He defines himself a Socialist (Democratic Socialist actually. I am not sure what he means). And East Germany was a Socialist state (It was considered as the best of the the eastern block countries AFAIK). However, it seems he is more like an admirer of the Nordic Model of Socialism (Which is based on the rule of small population and high taxation of private companies).
    - mikeash 11y ago
      If we look past the labels and at the actual policies, are there any relevant similarities? I mean, I don't think Sanders wants to build a fence to keep people from leaving the country, and shoot those who try.
DamnInteresting 11y ago
Thanks for the link! I am not the author of the article, but I am the Managing Editor of the site and I worked with the author in getting it ready. The funnest part was exchanging emails with one of the fellows involved (Günter Wetzel). His English is poor and my German is rustier than a tetanus factory, but with the help of Google Translate we were able to stumble through a conversation. He ended up sending me scans of a bunch of photos from his personal collection, several of which appear in the article (though a few required some restoration). Günter's a swell guy.
weinzierl 11y ago
Actually there are many stories like this. German newspaper Der Spiegel once had a whole series of articles. My favorite is about two guys escaping from East Germany an surf boards[1]. They built their own equipment, they never surfed before but still successfully crossed 70 km Baltic Sea in about 4 hours. The article link is just Google translated, the photo gallery is also interesting[2]. It has images from the trip of the surfer guys as well as other escapes including the balloon of Strelzyk und Wetzel. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Feinestages%2Fddr-flucht-auf-dem-surfbrett-a-997114.html&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr... [2]http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/spektakulaere-mauerfluchten-fotostrecke-120035.html http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/spektakulaere-mauerfluchte...
hauget 11y ago
Reminds me of the story of German actor Thomas Kretschmann (you might know him from playing Baron von Strucker in Avengers: Age of Ultron & Captain America: Winter Soldier). From his Wikipedia page: "At the age of 19, he fled East Germany and began a month-long trek to West Germany to escape the East German state. During this trek, part of his finger was lost but surgically reattached. Kretschmann crossed four borders (Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria) with nothing other than his passport and the equivalent of $100 in his possession." Pretty incredible!
rwmj 11y ago
How far did the wall / barrier go? Could it be walked around? Were there any weak spots in obscure fields in the countryside?
- allendoerfer 11y ago
  It went all the way through. While The Wall means the border that separated West Berlin from the East, there was a deadly border dividing all of Eastern Germany from the West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Green_Belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Green_Belt
louwrentius 11y ago
I would recommend everybody to take some interest in the 'damninteresting' podcasts. They are absolutely fabulous. If you donate a bit, you get 8+hours of stories like this.
rgbrgb 11y ago
The toggle animation combined with the click at the beginning of the audio is wonderful. Anybody know any non-game UIs with great sound like that? They're pretty rare but it could be cool if they come back in really subtle ways. Off the top of my head I think of iPod scroll wheel, iOS keyboard, and Facebook message alert sound. The first 2 are extremely subtle and well done, alert sounds are kind of just a necessary evil.
- dmix 11y ago
  If you're into this type of UI perfectionism, I recently read a book on the subject called 'Microinteractions' which I highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Microinteractions-Full-Color-Designing-Details/dp/1491945923/ http://www.amazon.com/Microinteractions-Full-Color-Designing... They give examples of designers using sound to enhance interactions. For example, slot machine designers make sure there are sounds every time the user interacts with the machine. The sounds and music also get louder and louder as the game goes on - to heighten the excitement and get the person addicted to that rush. One of the reasons why slot machines bring in more money than the movie or video game industries. Website designers should definitely utilize this more often!
geeklodhi 11y ago
I have read many articles but found this the most helping and motivating http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training.html http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training....
endymi0n 11y ago
If you like this story, you'll love this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspystory.com/intro.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspys... All ingredients hackers will find interesting: Surveillance, suspense, number stations, encryption, a human touch - and on top it's true as well. Amazing read.
e15ctr0n 11y ago
Another story of escape from East Germany that took place in 1972. http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memories/read-contributions/the-unforgettable/86-escape-from-east-germany-1972-by-kailash-mathur http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memories/read-contributions/...
douche 11y ago
If you ever get a chance to visit Berlin, make sure you go visit the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Big sections of the museum are devoted to the outlandish and ingenious ways that East Germans went over, under, around or through the Iron Curtain. If I recall correctly, there may actually be the remains of this home-made balloon, or at least a replica. Two others that I remember in particular: A West Berliner happened to own a convertible sportscar, and was dating an East German woman. One weekend, on returning from the East after visiting his girlfriend, he realized that if he put the top and the windscreen down, his vehicle was low enough to pass under the bar that was used at the East German checkpoint (this was relatively early, possibly before the Berlin Blockade, so security was laxer.) The next weekend, when he went to visit, he brought his girlfriend with him, and just gunned the car through the barricade, passing under the barrier into West Berlin. Another was a former aeronautic engineer who built a home-made aircraft in his barn, and flew over the wall to the west.
- clamprecht 11y ago
  Imagine if they'd had drones back then. How many drones does it take to generate enough lift and control to fly a 180-pound person?
  - idlewords 11y ago
    That's called an 'ultralight aircraft'.
  - themodelplumber 11y ago
    Well, they had submersible underwater scooters back then. I thought that escape was pretty cool--Manfred Burmeister, 1969.
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
> However, the Soviets were still angry with the Germans for having done so much damage to their homeland in the Second World War three decades earlier, so they did not care about East Germany’s bleak economic prospects. Not true. East Germany was socialism's window to the west so they were supposed to look their best all the time. As a result, they had the best lives in the Soviet Bloc. The rest of us had it much worse.
- allendoerfer 11y ago
  In fact in the very early days young people fed up with their nazi parents actually moved to the East to start something new. While the Soviets let East Germans build a pipeline for free once in a while, it was not generally their intention to let them suffer economically. Communism managed to do this on its own.
euroclydon 11y ago
I'm only a third of the way through the story, but I'm struck by the contrast between the intro's description of poverty in East Germany, and this family's ability to procure such vast amounts of fabric, and they fact they owned a car.
brc 11y ago
It's a great story. The introduction though - this took place in 1979. The Marshall plan was a limited program in the immediate postwar era. The rise of the West German economy was much more to do with the liberalization of the economy, restriction on government and of course the personal economic, speech and actual freedoms of the West Germans. By 1979 they were already exporting products to the USA and everywhere else by the container load. 'Mercedes Benz' by Janis Joplin was released in 1970 - the West German economy was in good shape by 1979, all from the work of the West German people.

205 points by vinnyglennon 11y ago

nsns 11y ago

Escape by swimming caught on camera - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CWajaOx4E

BJBBB 11y ago

There is still much suspicion in Germany. Families still remember their 'missing' members. One the way home, stopped in Germany early 1991 to see a good friend. While sitting at sidewalk table, my friend abruptly arose and got in the face of another patron. Words were exchanged, and they went behind the building. My friend returned later, with blood on his sleeves and hands, with his pocket notebook out. With a grim smile, he indicated that he now has a "list of people to talk to...". The wounds of Germany will not heal until their people of my generation have been buried.

y4mi 11y ago
the wall fell in 1988. 3 years before your event. its been over 20 years since then - there is no real witch hunt or hostility anymore.
- sdoering 11y ago
  Well it was on 9th of November 1989. Not 1988. But yeah, there is no witchhunt.
Zenst 11y ago
Yet much unrest in Germany due to massive migrant influx and why Germany who was pioneer within the EU to scap the borders is now looking at reintroducing them, whilst at the same time belittling other EU members for still having them as a means of migrant control. So with that, whole new generations will be carrying that mistrust torch and indeed how Ukraine was handled and Russian dealings still show a mistrust greater than the people who lived thru such times. The biggest impact though was the Stazi and a whole mistrust upon authority at some level still pertains and when the Snowden (NSAsceptic some could say given how the EU treats people who question things) was very much supported more in Germany and indeed more so than other countries in that area.

k__ 11y ago

My father got thrown out. My uncle was in prison because he wanted to leave and after his release the administration told his family (my father, my aunt, my uncle and their parents) they should leave on the next day. They grabbed everything they could carry, packed it in their car and got out.

tajen 11y ago
I always wonder... How did they start a life from scratch in another country? Without a job and roof for a few days you can quickly turn into a poorness cycle.
- thomasz 11y ago
  Obviously they were supported by the FDR's welfare system. To this day, ending up without a roof over your head is very rare without other problems like substance abuse or untreated mental illness.
- goodcanadian 11y ago
  The west was extremely good about helping those who escaped the East.
- rbehrends 11y ago
  There were programs in place that helped displaced persons – including refugees from the GDR – to start a new life [1]. This included direct financial aid, loans, and even (some) compensation for property that was left behind. [1] The Lastenausgleichsgesetz, or Equalization of Burdens Law: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26090 http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26090
- k__ 11y ago
  As far as I know, they had a house when I was born (1985) and they left east Germany around 1980.

jacquesm 11y ago

Super account of an extremely dangerous and imaginative way to escape the East. They were extremely lucky, the prevailing winds there are West-to-East. Every time I crossed back from East Germany into West Germany after spending time in Poland I had my car pretty much taken apart at the border (the head of the 'corridor', at a place called Helmstedt, if you drive by there today you can still see the watchtowers and the old border to the right of the highway) to make sure I wasn't hiding anybody in the strange bodywork of the car (a Citroen model DS which has a lot of weird curves and spaces). Very frustrating because the border guards would be very diligent about ripping everything up but they would definitely not help putting things back together again. One day I had my engine overheating on the Eastern side at the border and was greeted by rounds of tracer behind the car when I tried to back out of the cage that the car was in in search of water. Another time I got arrested at 'Checkpoint Charlie' by one Oberwachtmeister Krause because I wasn't supposed to be there (on the Eastern side). He was entirely correct that I shouldn't be there, the reason was that I'd helped a bunch of people that were stuck in their car (a Trabant, a small two stroke car with an extremely small engine that was prone to stop working for no particular reason) by the side of the road (East Germans were allowed the use of the corridor as well, but visitors and West Germans could not leave that road except with special permission) and I couldn't find my way back to the corridor. I had followed the signs back saying 'Berlin' but did not realize soon enough that this would not work. After many hours waiting and interviews and threats we were finally allowed to leave again. The Americans were quite surprised that a car with Dutch license plates approached from the East German side of the most guarded border in Europe, probably a first for them. No fond memories of the officials in 'The East', I hope their children and grandchildren will remind them periodically that they were part of the problem. Many of them went on to positions in the current German police force and military, not without resistance of their former West German colleagues who saw them (rightly) responsible for the many deaths on the East German side. Fortunately these families made it, many did not and it is good to remember that this was only a very few short years ago. Especially worth remembering given that if the East German authorities had had access to the kind of information that current governments have access to that these families likely would not have made it out at all and/or would have been killed in the attempt.

dominotw 11y ago

peckrob 11y ago

Disney actually made a movie out of this; they touch on it briefly at the end of the article. I watched it as a kid in once in school. It was called "Night Crossing" [0]. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's on any streaming service, but if you look around you might be able to find a DVD copy somewhere. Also, as a side note, it's nice to see Damn Interesting on here. It's one of the better blogs out there even if they don't update as much as they used to. The article about the race to liquefy helium and chasing the lowest temperature ever was really, really good [1]. [0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082810/ [1] http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k/ http://www.damninteresting.com/absolute-zero-is-0k/

weinzierl 11y ago
Another movie that has an Escaping from East Germany story line is "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch_%28film%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch_%28f...
DamnInteresting 11y ago
Thanks! I'm the founder of the site, and author of Absolute Zero is 0K. I wish we could post articles more frequently, but it's a spare-time-and-weekends project, and my spare time shrinks as I accumulate life responsibilities and such. And because I am the final editor I am a terrible bottleneck. I have hundreds--if not thousands--of other topics I want to write about. I am optimistic that one day I'll be able to afford to quit one of my days jobs and spend more time on Damn Interesting, which would help improve our posting frequency tremendously. In the meantime I sigh wistfully.
- peckrob 11y ago
  Hey, thanks for all the great articles! I don't want to come across as ungrateful or anything; I've been a reader for years and I love your work. I put your blog in the same category as Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts. They don't update super often, but when they do I know they're going to be good. :)
- 11y ago

CroCroCro 11y ago

Naila resident here. Ask me if you want to know something :P

geoka9 11y ago

There's a book[1] written by a Russian guy in the US about his efforts to escape from the USSR by... swimming the ocean! It's a highly entertaining book, although there's a chapter in which he describes his incarceration in a Soviet mental facility, and that one is pretty gruesome. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B0006OX6UG http://www.amazon.com/Inclined-Escape-Yuri-Vetokhin/dp/B0006...

willvarfar 11y ago

Another escape story is Bernd Boettger, who built a mini submarine: http://www.hisutton.com/The%20Escape%20of%20Bernd%20Boettger.html http://www.hisutton.com/The%20Escape%20of%20Bernd%20Boettger...

kuni-toko-tachi 11y ago

Required reading for every Bernie Sanders supporter who inhales the sickness of socialism and smells the sweetness of utopian fanatasies.

nik61 11y ago
I think you'll find that the behaviour of the East German Authorities has more in common with the beliefs of Mr Trump than those of Mr Sanders, but either way that's a cheap shot not worthy of democratic debate and stretches the point in either case.
- ilaksh 11y ago
  The problem is that most communist societies have been authoritarian and there is ZERO acknowledgement of that fact in technocratic or technocommunist discussions.
mikeash 11y ago
I'm a mild Sanders supporter, and I see absolutely nothing relevant to him in this article. Would you care to elaborate?
- afsina 11y ago
  He defines himself a Socialist (Democratic Socialist actually. I am not sure what he means). And East Germany was a Socialist state (It was considered as the best of the the eastern block countries AFAIK). However, it seems he is more like an admirer of the Nordic Model of Socialism (Which is based on the rule of small population and high taxation of private companies).
  - mikeash 11y ago
    If we look past the labels and at the actual policies, are there any relevant similarities? I mean, I don't think Sanders wants to build a fence to keep people from leaving the country, and shoot those who try.

DamnInteresting 11y ago

Thanks for the link! I am not the author of the article, but I am the Managing Editor of the site and I worked with the author in getting it ready. The funnest part was exchanging emails with one of the fellows involved (Günter Wetzel). His English is poor and my German is rustier than a tetanus factory, but with the help of Google Translate we were able to stumble through a conversation. He ended up sending me scans of a bunch of photos from his personal collection, several of which appear in the article (though a few required some restoration). Günter's a swell guy.

weinzierl 11y ago

Actually there are many stories like this. German newspaper Der Spiegel once had a whole series of articles. My favorite is about two guys escaping from East Germany an surf boards[1]. They built their own equipment, they never surfed before but still successfully crossed 70 km Baltic Sea in about 4 hours. The article link is just Google translated, the photo gallery is also interesting[2]. It has images from the trip of the surfer guys as well as other escapes including the balloon of Strelzyk und Wetzel. [1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Feinestages%2Fddr-flucht-auf-dem-surfbrett-a-997114.html&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr... [2]http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/spektakulaere-mauerfluchten-fotostrecke-120035.html http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/spektakulaere-mauerfluchte...

hauget 11y ago

Reminds me of the story of German actor Thomas Kretschmann (you might know him from playing Baron von Strucker in Avengers: Age of Ultron & Captain America: Winter Soldier). From his Wikipedia page: "At the age of 19, he fled East Germany and began a month-long trek to West Germany to escape the East German state. During this trek, part of his finger was lost but surgically reattached. Kretschmann crossed four borders (Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria) with nothing other than his passport and the equivalent of $100 in his possession." Pretty incredible!

rwmj 11y ago

How far did the wall / barrier go? Could it be walked around? Were there any weak spots in obscure fields in the countryside?

allendoerfer 11y ago
It went all the way through. While The Wall means the border that separated West Berlin from the East, there was a deadly border dividing all of Eastern Germany from the West. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Green_Belt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Green_Belt

louwrentius 11y ago

I would recommend everybody to take some interest in the 'damninteresting' podcasts. They are absolutely fabulous. If you donate a bit, you get 8+hours of stories like this.

rgbrgb 11y ago

The toggle animation combined with the click at the beginning of the audio is wonderful. Anybody know any non-game UIs with great sound like that? They're pretty rare but it could be cool if they come back in really subtle ways. Off the top of my head I think of iPod scroll wheel, iOS keyboard, and Facebook message alert sound. The first 2 are extremely subtle and well done, alert sounds are kind of just a necessary evil.

dmix 11y ago
If you're into this type of UI perfectionism, I recently read a book on the subject called 'Microinteractions' which I highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Microinteractions-Full-Color-Designing-Details/dp/1491945923/ http://www.amazon.com/Microinteractions-Full-Color-Designing... They give examples of designers using sound to enhance interactions. For example, slot machine designers make sure there are sounds every time the user interacts with the machine. The sounds and music also get louder and louder as the game goes on - to heighten the excitement and get the person addicted to that rush. One of the reasons why slot machines bring in more money than the movie or video game industries. Website designers should definitely utilize this more often!

geeklodhi 11y ago

I have read many articles but found this the most helping and motivating http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training.html http://googler700.blogspot.com.tr/2015/08/self-seo-training....

endymi0n 11y ago

If you like this story, you'll love this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspystory.com/intro.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110719094747/http://www.myspys... All ingredients hackers will find interesting: Surveillance, suspense, number stations, encryption, a human touch - and on top it's true as well. Amazing read.

e15ctr0n 11y ago

Another story of escape from East Germany that took place in 1972. http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memories/read-contributions/the-unforgettable/86-escape-from-east-germany-1972-by-kailash-mathur http://www.dadinani.com/capture-memories/read-contributions/...

douche 11y ago

If you ever get a chance to visit Berlin, make sure you go visit the museum at Checkpoint Charlie. Big sections of the museum are devoted to the outlandish and ingenious ways that East Germans went over, under, around or through the Iron Curtain. If I recall correctly, there may actually be the remains of this home-made balloon, or at least a replica. Two others that I remember in particular: A West Berliner happened to own a convertible sportscar, and was dating an East German woman. One weekend, on returning from the East after visiting his girlfriend, he realized that if he put the top and the windscreen down, his vehicle was low enough to pass under the bar that was used at the East German checkpoint (this was relatively early, possibly before the Berlin Blockade, so security was laxer.) The next weekend, when he went to visit, he brought his girlfriend with him, and just gunned the car through the barricade, passing under the barrier into West Berlin. Another was a former aeronautic engineer who built a home-made aircraft in his barn, and flew over the wall to the west.

clamprecht 11y ago
Imagine if they'd had drones back then. How many drones does it take to generate enough lift and control to fly a 180-pound person?
- idlewords 11y ago
  That's called an 'ultralight aircraft'.
- themodelplumber 11y ago
  Well, they had submersible underwater scooters back then. I thought that escape was pretty cool--Manfred Burmeister, 1969.

stefantalpalaru 11y ago

> However, the Soviets were still angry with the Germans for having done so much damage to their homeland in the Second World War three decades earlier, so they did not care about East Germany’s bleak economic prospects. Not true. East Germany was socialism's window to the west so they were supposed to look their best all the time. As a result, they had the best lives in the Soviet Bloc. The rest of us had it much worse.

allendoerfer 11y ago
In fact in the very early days young people fed up with their nazi parents actually moved to the East to start something new. While the Soviets let East Germans build a pipeline for free once in a while, it was not generally their intention to let them suffer economically. Communism managed to do this on its own.

euroclydon 11y ago

I'm only a third of the way through the story, but I'm struck by the contrast between the intro's description of poverty in East Germany, and this family's ability to procure such vast amounts of fabric, and they fact they owned a car.

brc 11y ago

It's a great story. The introduction though - this took place in 1979. The Marshall plan was a limited program in the immediate postwar era. The rise of the West German economy was much more to do with the liberalization of the economy, restriction on government and of course the personal economic, speech and actual freedoms of the West Germans. By 1979 they were already exporting products to the USA and everywhere else by the container load. 'Mercedes Benz' by Janis Joplin was released in 1970 - the West German economy was in good shape by 1979, all from the work of the West German people.