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Jan 13, 2024

The Gate Crashers Who Smuggled Human Cargo Across the Berlin Wall

The brave, creative souls who smuggled human cargo across the Berlin Wall. The

The brave, creative souls who smuggled human cargo across the Berlin Wall.

The Second World War left Germany split up by the victorious Allies: Britain, France, theUnited States, and the Soviet Union. That put the country on the front line of the Iron Curtain, soon to be divided between the free, democraticBundesrepublik Deutschland, usually known as West Germany, and the Russia-backed, decidedly undemocratic Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), or East Germany.

This story originally appeared in Volume 11 of Road & Track.

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Even Berlin was split four ways, though it was well inside the Russian sector. Which is why, as the economic imbalance between East and West grew more obvious, the Third Reich's capital became the favored location for those seeking to change sides. By the early Sixties, one-fifth of East Germany's population had voted with their feet and moved west.

The DDR came up with a simple solution to stem this defection tide. Initially little more than a fence, the Berlin Wall was soon strengthened and reinforced. Further land was cleared for "death strips" that gave armed guards clear lines of fire at escapees. More than 100,000 East German stried to escape between 1961 and the fall of communism. More than 600 died in the process, 140of them in Berlin.

Successful escapees ran, swam, and tunneled their way to freedom. Some flew homemade air-craft, and a few scrambled through sewage pipes. But many fled by car.

Relying on Sixties British automotive technology imperiled any escape, yet one heroic Austin-Healey Sprite starred in two separate bust-outs. The first came after Austrian engineer Hans Meixner got engaged to an East German woman. When her request to leave the country was refused, Meixnerfound a practical solution.

At the Checkpoint Charlie crossing, he feigned engine trouble on a scooter and measured the height of the East German boom barrier, which was37.5 inches. Then, at a West Berlin rental agency, Meixner found an Austin-Healey Sprite. With its windscreen and roof in place, it was too tall for what he had in mind, but the screen could be easily unscrewed. With his fiancée tucked in a blanket down behind the seats and his future mother-in-law shut in the trunk behind a row of bricks for armor, Meixner approached the border late one night. When a guard directed him to an inspection area, he gunned the engine, swerved around a slalom course of concrete, and ducked down as the car approached the barrier with two inches of clearance, passing straight under it.

After the German Argentine Norbert Konradrented the exact-same Sprite and slipped under the barrier again, the East German police added beams below the barrier gates.

The use of cars and trucks to smuggle escapees led the East German police to inspect suspect vehicles closely. Some were more suspicious than others.

Klaus-Günter Jacobi's family left East Berlin before the wall went up, but then one of his childhood friends, Manfred Koster, asked for help to escape. Using skills acquired as an auto mechanic, Jacobi built a hidden compartment in the space behind his tiny BMW Isetta's seat. This required the exhaust to be moved and a relocated panel to look completely standard. Using the hiding space meant there wouldn't be room for the regular3.5-gallon gas tank. At the last moment, it would bereplaced by a fuel tank containing just two quarts, enough to get across the border.

Jacobi's first driving recruit changed her mind after a test run. Two students volunteered to help but then struggled to swap the fuel tank once in the East. When the Isetta got to the border with Koster curled into a fetal position next to the engine, police waved the car through without inspection, not believing there was any chance of hiding somebody in the miniature car.

Much of the people-smuggling across the Iron Curtain was amateur, but some made it a vocation. Burkhart Veigel was one of the most prolific escape artists. The medical student dug tunnels, forged passports, and smuggled refugees to freedom in a variety of vehicles.

The most stylish and successful was a 1957 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Veigel's was a tatty, battered version of the gargantuan two-door that he bought cheap. He modified it with a clever L-shaped compartment integrated into the vast dashboard, one that required the human cargo to lie backward with legs vertical next to the A-pillar.

The land yacht's size guaranteed close attention, but the ingenious hiding place was concealed behind steel plates and unlocked only by powerful magnets. Veigel carried more than 200 people to freedom in the Cadillac.

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