We want out! - Escape Story Part 5 - The U-boat across the Baltic Sea - Walter Gerber 
In the summer of 1979, the plan matures in Walter Gerber approached to flee the submarine through the Baltic Sea. The reasons for this are previous years. Gerber was working in the VEB Marine Electronics Rostock. In two correspondence courses he has to engineer qualified for microelectronics, tinkering in his spare hours in the basement and garage around, building radios and television and leads a low profile, normal life. Mid-70s this is over, says Ingrid Gerber, the wife of the late engineer: "My husband was just about to finish his degree one day, he has been called into a room, which until then was off limits to all employees and of its. existence they knew nothing. There sat the national security. The revealed my husband then that he would be obliged to provide services because he had studied 13 years at the expense of the state. Otherwise, he could graduated forgotten. "
forced to spying
Walter Gerber is torn, it is very much at its conclusion. As an employee of the ship's electronics Rostock is it with security clearance, the Stasi frees him, but from its secrecy. Across from her he should make statements on operational matters, serves as the in Wolgast produced warships, the radio equipment Gerber. The Stasi has become hear everything, because there are gone from the collective in the work of the engineer, two men in the West. Gerber to information pass. is not the quiet, reserved man of the type to resist the pressure of national security. He told his commanding officer wants to hear what the. After one and a half years, the situation changes, recalls, Mrs. Gerber: "My husband noticed quite soon that it was designed not only to operational matters, but that there should be a highly personal experience. My husband was his fellow spy That he has conscientious objection denied. He suffered greatly and kept the whole time for themselves. Only when he got massive insomnia and stomach problems, he told me that he is being blackmailed by the state security. "
Walter Gerber is making statements about my colleagues, but only general and very friendly, he does not write any letter of comfort for an informal cooperation, says his wife. Eventually, all electronics keeps the boat any longer. In October 1977 he makes his friend Ulrich Chill a confession.. "We met in the restaurant 'Kosmos' in Rostock, it was really rainy and nasty weather, he told me then said that he worked for the Stasi, that he has a contact has he had to submit reports and that he had reports was fined because he actually was a man who never hurt a could. They would then come out somehow and he would have problems because he made false statements. He just was not able to denounce people. I think that he was trying to get out so and so still to remain decent. But that was with the double and triple monitoring mechanism of the Stasi, of course, an illusion. "
Stasi prevented job change
Walter Gerber a way out looking. He wants the VEB leave marine electronics and is bidding at the Rostock University with Professor Horst Klink husband, . Director of the Department of Internal Medicine Gerber's wife recalls, "My husband got there a fee contract and has worked to the complete satisfaction of Professor Klinkmann. Finally, he got a hundred percent commitment to be adjusted if desired. When my husband came back out, he got a rejection on the ground, according to position it can not be him . Setting My husband knew that this was thwarted by the state security. He has then applied in an engineering school in Warnemünde, also because he got a commitment. Later he applied the Südkrankenhaus Rostock, there also was said to him. Fourteen days later, both bodies each regretted that he was not yet able to set. In Stasi documents I read later that the State Security was responsible. They wanted to nail him for marine electronics. "
addition, there are oppressive living conditions. For some time trying to Gerber's would trade their small two-room apartment in the southern part of Rostock with a larger one. They succeed in spite of repeated Do not try. The daughter Stefanie, then in pre-school age remembers nothing of the hardships of their parents. It grows skillfully in with her grandparents... "The grandparents lived about three minutes away from us, I was often there, we were near our apartment building a really large, old garden with beautiful old trees, I'm almost every day with my grandfather was in this garden - where I grew up. "
desperation behind the facade of a family idyll
Stefanie Gerber sometimes wishes that her father has more time for them. When he comes home at night, it is usually already in bed. Nevertheless, the ratio lovingly between the two: "My father was always very honest I can remember that I got from the nursery once brought a doll dress with a home, probably because I nice place, not because I wanted to take it away And I know.. nor that my father said, 'That you have but tomorrow Request by e-immediately! " He has made quite a fuss. My father was a very honest person and really could not fly what do harm. He was very attached to his profession and was able to deal with problems until he had solved it. He was always for me a loving father. We have sewn doll things. He was always nice to show me such things, especially when it comes to craft things went. "
deceive the family idyll. has long since Walter Gerber so desperate about his situation, the Stasi interrogations, failed change of residence and the unsuccessful candidates in other companies that he has only one way out seems appropriate. He wants to leave the GDR. "My husband was very connected with the water. That was for him a symbol of freedom. Even as a young man he has been involved in Warnemünde too much with the sea. He knew the best Breitling. For him no other way possible as the flight across the Baltic Sea. "
an exit visa Walter Gerber considers hopeless, after all he has security clearance. In addition comes the Fear of vocational disadvantages. When he formally requested a leave, it may be years before he can leave the country - if he ever would get a permit. So the ship electronics gets the idea to build a submarine.. "In his distress, and in his distress, my husband came to this thought for me it's still inconceivable to build under these conditions, a submarine ago be all this fear to be discovered. "
start of construction in the garage
In August 1979 Walter Gerber begins with the construction of the submarine. Nobody knows anything about it, not even their own families. He reads books about U-boat construction informed about the processing of optical fiber and plastic materials and designs detailed drawings. To avoid being captured in the radar, the engineer wants to stay with his plastic-submarine to the three-mile underwater. Then show up, he wants to go on the water to Denmark and then travel from there to the Federal Republic, all alone, his wife says, "I have unsuspected We had a harmonious marriage with full respect for each other I never thought that my husband.. secrets have or do something, would what I have no idea. The submarine was built by my husband in the garage, which was five minutes away from our apartment. He then lifted the concrete slab, cemented a pit and that with 2000 liters of water filled. That was his obtained experimental ponds. "
The water for the Walter Gerber from the ring ditch, which flows near the garage along. In the dark, he drags it approached with buckets and small vessels. The pit, about two meters long, it covered with wooden planks and floor coverings from, it is the Wartburg. For months, Gerber is working hard on the U-boat used, washing machines, cars and plumbing replacement parts, installed batteries to power down, in addition to a steering gear in place a system for flooding as well as a compass, and equips the U-boat with a direction finder for Seefunkfeuer of Warnemünde and the Danish Gedser. And the inventor builds a car-trailer in order to which he can transport the submarine.
unconsciously helping colleagues with
The colleagues from the VEB marine electronics help indirectly. Dierk Schröder, then manager of Walter Gerber, recalls: "We have pulled together for his followers an old Trabant of the bog, from which he could use the-arm for his trailer or he got a permit for the draw tube from the shipyard. another brought old sea charts, the next half times with adhesives. We all had contributed a small proportion of the boat, but no one has suspected something like this. " Ingrid Gerber also is not unusual behavior on her husband: "He just tinkered much tweaking and repairs even cars that's part of us to life, it has me and not at all suspicious that it late at night for dinner or joined again in the garage went -.. For me that was normal. "
The plan: family reunification in the West
Walter Gerber dedicates his family for two reasons do not include: First, he wants to avoid that flies up by a careless remark all, and secondly he does not want to burden his wife and daughter, calling her to accomplices makes. The engineer will leave the country alone, and then make up for his family. He relies on the CSCE Helsinki agreement, the 1975 35 states was signed - by the GDR. Under the agreement, a family reunion possible with Republic refugees. In the Helsinki Final Act states: was granted
"The participating States will deal in a positive and humanitarian spirit with the applications of persons who wish to be reunited with members of their family ... people whose applications for ..., to their household and carry out their personal belongings or confirm a Friend ... The participating States ... that the submission of an application concerning family reunification will not modify the rights and obligations of the applicant's or members of his family. "
first escape attempt
After a year, Walter Gerber finished with the construction of the submarine. It is nearly two meters long, two feet wide and weighs about 70 kilograms. Under the pretext of a mission, he leaves his family. On the evening of 12 August 1980 began his first attempt. Ingrid Gerber recalls. "I know even today, as he stood at the bedside of our child and remained there longer than usual, but this idea that seemed peculiar to me that I only registered later in 1980 the summer was rainy so - that he had not enough considered. He was stuck with the U-boat in the soggy grass and could not before and not back. With unbearable and unimaginable fears Forces, it has managed to get it back out. Then he drove the same night at the Breitling. There he realized that the place was so dredged, that he could not get deep enough into the water. He had the lead ballast - that was fishing lead - purchased from all over the GDR and melted together to clean push the U-boat with its own forces in the Breitling. And he has not succeeded. It began to dawn on you had to expect that the first tourists came by, their boats were moored there. My husband then went back at dawn. "
The lead remains in the water. Walter Gerber goes back to the garage, hide the submarine and is available at August 13, 1980 five in the morning clock before his startled wife, "I see him today: Total at the end, wet bleary-eyed, missing him some clothes, my husband has been lying for several days in bed, he was emotionally and physically ruined... And then he told me that he would have built a submarine, because the blackmail by the Stasi would have been so strong that he saw no other way. He could not reconcile that with his conscience, betrayed his colleagues. I 've never seen this U-boat. Only my mother went with him into the garage and it has looked at. I got it out of fear not done. "
second escape attempt
Ingrid Gerber asks her husband to risk his life to never more so. He promises. 14 days later, Walter Gerber tried again to escape. Before he built for his U-boat. It removes the built-in ballast tank to make the boat lighter. With a travel order Gerber runs on 26 August after Wolgast versa, but in the evening back to Rostock, takes the U-boat and pushes it on the beach of Stove, northeast of Wismar, in the lake. It is two clock in the morning: "My husband came in Stove deep enough water, got full of joy in the U-boat, shut the lid and put the boat in motion after a time he had to find with dismay that the boat through. the lack of lead ballast was too easy and thus no longer be steered straight was. He had to bring the boat back to the beach and there has sunk a heavy heart. I knew nothing of the attempt. I have noticed only by the interrogations of national security. "
third escape attempt
Walter Gerber goes back to Wolgast, so no one noticed his absence. The submarine is on the same day found by travelers on Stover beach and . the authorities confiscated yet the engineering is safe - no one takes him to the sunken wreck of the name, but the thoughts of escape let the 36-year-olds not get rid of a colleague, he learns that the border between Hungary and Austria was overcome at night easily.. . Gerber have obtained a visa for Hungary and breaks on 1 October 1980 six in the morning with his clock at Wartburg. His wife, he deceives again before a mission. As Gerber has taken only a few things, including two atlases, binoculars and a compass, he falls to the inspectors at the border to Czechoslovakia at the border crossing Schmilka: "My husband was alone, without family, and was asked for the reason that he to Hungary wants. He said he would look for a holiday resort. This one has not taken from him. When a man came without family, was reason enough to speculate. " Walter Gerber is brought to Pirna and interrogated there.
house search
yet The same evening appear to be two men with Ingrid Gerber in Rostock. "Our daughter had just gone to bed, I saw outside the window two men in leather jackets with a lighter handle The next moment the bell rang I am then on the door. gone and asked who was there. And a man said that I should immediately open the door or they would break it. I then opened. I got scared because I quickly realized that it had to go to my husband. And then they stood in the apartment and showed me her ID. My first question was' What about my husband? " Ironically, the answer is your man enjoys good health. Where is the garage key? " I said, 'The hangs upon the board. " 'Show us the time - he does not hang! Where are binoculars, her camera, she is Atlas? " I had at the desk my husband and lacked real binoculars, camera and Atlas. "
Ingrid Gerber gets no information about her husband the next morning it must be to the police in the Rostock elm street sign, should be heard and to 13 Clock .. returned to her apartment for hours Stasi men search the apartment, the basement and the garage as witnesses, two neighbors while Stefanie daughter comes home from school. "I came into the apartment and everything was completely confused. My grandma just cried before. Any men stood in the home and cleared out everything. I was a child, of course, did not understand. I was then brought out and went with my grandpa on the playground. He was very depressed. No one told me at the moment what happened. I just knew something about my father. He is not come home. It took me 'unresolved XY' on this show recalls. As a child you get here, I believe, even more anxiety as an adult "
seized security of the State on that date a total of 57 items. Tubing, copper cables, letters, and rubber mats, all that is related to the U-boat construction in context. The pit in the garage remains undetected at first you will -. as well as the construction documents the U-boat - until the next day in the second search found.
Gerber is being abused and humiliated
Walter Gerber has since been moved from Pirna to Dresden. There he was interrogated for hours at night and the second on 3 October 1980 in a Barkas brought to Rostock - shackled, in a stooping posture, with eyes blindfolded, "So my husband was taken away and you have not told him what you have with him and where he goes, he is gone all night.. been and is in Rostock in the pre-trial detention ended up in the Greenway. He was very bleary-eyed, emotionally and physically so in the end that he thought then, that would be the end. He had to dispose of all clothes and was placed under a cold shower. Then he was examined on a dehumanizing way ... I may not tell you ... in body sites where they are may not even imagine that. "
six months Walter Gerber is based in Rostock in custody. Because we had found during the searches of flats 500 D-Mark, spread the rumor that he was a Western . spy friends and relatives are withdrawing from the Gerber
classmates border daughter Stefanie from
guilt by association for her daughter at school. "There was always something like a class president, who called the group of the Council. I can remember I should be so. The teacher then told the students that would not. Steffi could not be. When they asked why it would not because she said that she would explain later. Children may themselves be really brutal. It was almost unbearable for me at the time when I was constantly asked, 'Where is your father? He is still in prison, say you do, you give to it to! " 'How can you even still go to school? " This can not comprehend and understand. Other children have turned away from me. Since the intended parents have said 'Because sometimes it carefully, with the game' sometimes better not. " Many parents have felt determined, my father is a criminal - for many it was a crime to leave the country. I can now understand well that their children have said, 'The Game' times do not! ', I have no feelings of hatred. "
reactions from colleagues and superiors
The secret police searched the workplace and three times the home of Gerber's In the workplace, they seized must write a paperback book titled "The sea route to India," Gerber's boss Dierk Schröder an assessment: "For me it has always been a technically expert staff, in my estimation a bit unconventional, but still.. good colleague. Thus fell from my assessment. This was not the boss agree. The expected of us that we are distanced from the behavior of Walter Gerber. We could not. I stayed in my assessment. So - this design, a U-boat alone to build and test and then use them - we have it already admired "
Help Ingrid Gerber of the colleagues of her husband receives is not your father had the.. excitement suffered a stroke, she waits, even with fear, but also with hope for the day of the trial: "I just do not believe that one convicted my husband. He was so clever in his profession, I thought that it may not yet forgotten. In addition, it was not his home which he loved, the reason for the flight, but the state security. Many did this and have him drop as people anyway. I have not thought possible. "
support from the parish
But there is also support. For example, the pastor of the Rostock Southtown community and people from the local church circuit. You know Ingrid Gerber who regularly goes to church .. Pastor Schnauer she accompanied her husband to court on March 23, 1981 On this day, the daughter Stefanie ten years old: "There were always taken important data to show that we are always with you. This was my birthday over. I remember that I got a blue pen. The whole day was horrible, because all were sitting at home and have been waiting for my mother comes back. Of course that was not a nice birthday, and when you get the child or otherwise with. You can see how the adults are trying desperately to make one but still somehow beautiful. Mentally they are somewhere else, "Mrs. Gerber
remembers the trial date". When my husband and guarded with toggle chains was handcuffed inside out, I went up to him, but I was held. They told him that they would make of used firearms, if he would try to flee. We then saw how my husband has been treated: the representative of Attorney Vogel, Mr. Tissen-Husen, and chief prosecutor handing both sat with her back to my husband in front of him sat Judge Unger, him yelling that he was not for peace. Then the judge had made such an extent that they read a provision, and we were removed from the hall. "
The verdict
Walter Gerber after two days of negotiations by the Regional Court of Rostock for many attempts at flight from the republic to a prison sentence of four years and six months are convicted. His Wartburg, the submarine and 160 seized in the raids confiscated without compensation matters, including his driver's license and the Car trailer. Gerber had acted with particular intensity and committed treason against the German Democratic Republic, says the verdict:
"His decision making, to leave the GDR illegally corresponds to his petty-bourgeois selfish attitude ... The preparation and experimental acts of illegal abandonment the GDR are socially dangerous and significantly affect the legitimate privacy interests of our society greatly. stubbornly tried the accused and targeted to achieve his purpose, and acted very irresponsibly. "
stands in case no word on national security. No mention of the emotional conflict, in which Walter Gerber was brought. The engineer arrived in the detention center Cottbus. His wife can visit him every two months: "We sat us about five feet across from it was not a whisper possible We have always been closely guarded, he had a suit on, which reminded me of the Hitler era... Brown with yellow stripes. He was not raised in or with Mr. Gerber, he was just a number. "
comfort and help Ingrid Gerber gets from the Cottbus pastor couple Armin and Johanna Schötz. With them they can stay when they visited her husband. Because the journey is not to create in a day return trip takes 19 hours.
With violent criminals in a cell
In Cottbus prison are mainly imprisoned political prisoners, but also child murderers and other violent criminals. They lie with the political in a cell, said Stefanie Gerber: "You did that deliberately, that it has combined political prisoners with primitives, so they suffer more below and do not support each other may, if he has talked about it later. were the more horrible stories While no torture and torment in a literal sense, but squeezed into a tiny space as the only Non smoking among smokers or typical prison manners.. When a new inmate arrived, have the older ones on him overthrown and made things that one would not imagine. "
Walter Gerber learn English words to mentally stay fit, and later in the west professionally better to catch up. For he still wants the Federal Republic. The Engineering developed a secret writing in order to write in his letters not only about the weather and other banalities. To the family support he sends monthly 60 marks to Rostock. The money Gerber earned hazardous work in prison, recalls Hans Dieter boy. Young was also at that time for attempted escape from the Republic in Cottbus, "He has turned from Sprelakat, a phenolic plastic, bushings. Were Spare parts for parties. He has done all day. We told him he should not breathe the stuff and not so close up with the nose it, because powerful dust when turning the Sprelakat, which is carcinogenic. "
Federal Republic Gerber ransoms
After four years ... Walter Gerber dismissed, six months before the end of the detention period is because the Federal Republic of ransoms political prisoner for 90000 D-Mark in October 1984, he comes to Lübeck and finds a job at the University His family is now trying to - relying on the Helsinki agreement - the latest:
"It was a difficult time because my mother is still among the authorities to leave had. She was invited and had to say why they want to, had to submit forms and himself had little time to pack. The day came when the movers, they did not want to pack up the things. I wanted to take furniture from my grandparents. They have refused to pack because they were too heavy. I sat on the table my grandmother did, cried and said, 'I want to come along this furniture,' "
A few pieces of furniture can take with Gerber in the West. Their departure has now approved. On December 21, 1984 Ingrid sit and Stefanie Gerber with his grandmother on the train to Lübeck. you leave the country without a penny.
See you in Lübeck
"I remember well that came to the border controls. We were afraid that now, but everything does not work and we can not leave," recalls Stefanie. "When the train in Lübeck import ... had this message 'Hauptbahnhof Lübeck' was like a relief," says her mother. "We looked at the illuminated platform and saw my husband waving a bouquet. He came up to us and that we have located in the arms. Words we have not found first. We have pushed us all the tears ran. " Stefanie understand there could hardly see her father after four years: "At first we were probably foreign to us. I remember that I have seen the flower shop at the station, believing it could not aware that there were lovely flowers everywhere, even though December was. For my first Christmas in Lübeck, I got six green apples, because I wanted to have it. I also got from the Diakonia a voucher for a pair of pants. That was the best Christmas party in which we again could all celebrate together, "
But the day brings the family quickly again, Stefanie goes to school, the father to work and Ingrid Gerber maintains diagnosed with Alzheimer's grandmother:". Each of us had wished to see peace to get back together and life entirely different approach. My husband had his job at the university. Of course we are very pleased that he got the job, but he had no time to recover. It was bitter for us three. . It was very much on track ".
The State Security Walter Gerber also observed in the Federal Republic are the findings of its 900-page file, which he sees the beginning of the 90s Gerber fear of persecution is not unfounded." My father came home and told him there was almost run over a vice. Who had not responded, though he stood in the middle of the road and would have been green. My father was certainly no one who imagined something or Persecution suffered. But he always had a feeling. In hindsight, we know that it's really been so. For example, he has come because of his health problems to cure. .. In the Stasi files we read later that you have someone sent there to watch him "
diagnosis brain tumor
In the autumn of 1995 no longer exist, the past, East and national security seems Walter Gerber catch up, but this time much harder: On a normal day Walter Gerber loses consciousness when he and colleagues at the lunch comes the doctors found no cause few weeks later he was again unconscious, he was investigated and diagnosed.. a brain tumor.
Buy thinks Walter Gerber to his pre-trial detention in Rostock, "My father told from the period of detention forever, that his worst experience was when he was shut into a room where he had to sit on a chair Man. told him that this was the photography section, in which the file should be created for him. The employee left this room ... " Mrs. Gerber continues, "He was told he would have to remain very still there were lights on him, pushed buttons and turned the chair around 90 degrees.." "He always had the feeling, the same would go with him to a door and he would disappear forever," adds Stefan. "He knew that something happened to him, but could not define in more detail. He was very aware of high anxiety at the moment, which he afterwards in his stories always found to be particularly bad. "Walter Gerber, that what happened there is not, was normal. It is now believed that one political prisoners at that time with X-rays .. has irradiated Exactly the proceeds from the Stasi files but not apparent
Walter Gerber dies - a result of the remand
After three operations, an unsuccessful radiotherapy and chemotherapy Walter Gerber died on June 17, 1998?. His wife later sought time to find evidence for a contamination of her husband. The long-term Family friend, Ulrich Churchill supported it open. Churchill is now working in Schwerin Ministry of Social Affairs, Department of Radiation protection and safety devices in medicine. It can test the in Rostock prison found X-ray machine. "I have a dose rate of the device DE36 studied with an expert and found that the plant is not a person can harm physically I do not know why that was done - perhaps to other attempts to make. "
Because in other Stasi prisons X-ray devices were found and tell prisoners that they had been contaminated, identify prosecutors and state police. Support be it from the State Commissioner for the Stasi files in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Jörn Mothes. It confirms Churchill opinion. "It has rightly always led to speculation that many political prisoners are suffering from various, some rare tumor types for X-ray equipment that could be found yet, I can already exclude technical reasons that used the may have been to induce tumors in prisoners. I know that has been determined to do so. but you must remember that you have a reasonable suspicion only if you set the date and the person who uses the X-ray machine abusive describe it concretely. to provide such evidence is almost impossible. "
the proceeding from Magel of evidence
The investigation into Gerber in July 2000 set result. Unknown is also where the submarine came to the trial. Up Today it is missing, the investigation by prosecutors and state police lead to another surprising finding. The State Security worked with radioactive substances you put such persons radioactive needles in the clothing to pick them out so easily if Walter Gerber exposed to radioactive rays.. was - even for this there is no evidence
Ingrid Gerber. now lives in Lübeck. "There is a weakness in me a boundless emptiness and a lack of understanding which is compared with that have the GDR period can exploit I hate those people who have my man so wronged and him so afflicted.. I can do anything to them, but I hate and despise them. " Her daughter, Stefanie feels powerless, but feels no hatred, "For me personally it is so that I'm trying to suppress this in order to deal with it This is definitely not the best way the whole I was very marked, and.. I am more sensitive to political background and hidden connections. I sat intensely with political systems, but I do not think every day about what happened to us. But I look very forward. I look forward to all that is to come. . When I look back, I think not, how terrible it all was - there were beautiful moments, "Today, Stefanie Gerber wants a more intensive discussion of the GDR, the story of her father is one of them
Author: Bert Lingnau
.. Source: ndr.radio
