35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall: Sailor manages to escape the GDR twice by sea

Once the lines were secure, Christa and I dropped into the cockpit, stressed out, and remained silent, as if in silent prayer. All the fear and pain we had endured was replayed in front of our eyes in a fraction of a second. After this brief moment of silence - we felt like people crawling out of the cellar after a bomb attack and realising that they were still alive - the two of us came to life.

Simultaneously and spontaneously, we jumped up, hugged each other and performed a bunny dance in the cockpit. Then Christa jumped down into the cabin and put out two glasses of water and Adlershof vodka. Now we poured Schto Gramm. We raised our glasses. To freedom!"

Also interesting:

• Portrait: Georg Dibbern makes history in German sailing

The scene takes place in Gedser harbour on 8 August 1961, five days before the Wall was built and the GDR was completely sealed off. Sailor Klaus Schröder from Stralsund has just moored his "Rugia" here with his wife Christa. They had been here six days earlier. But they had to return because their fellow sailors didn't want to flee to the West with them. Looking back, the fact that it worked out a second time is a real miracle. Klaus Schröder was in his late 20s when he finally decided to leave the workers' and farmers' state. The engineer has a well-paid job, is happily married and the proud owner of a 75-square-metre National Cruiser. From the point of view of his fellow GDR citizens, he has a fulfilled life in every respect. Schröder is also no enemy of the system. After the war, he had believed in helping to build a better Germany, had joined the SED and described himself as an honest young communist.

1960 The escape plan is created

But in 1960, Schröder realised he wanted to move over. To the West. To flee the republic, a criminal offence. In his autobiographical story "Kiel - Feuerschiff in Sicht!" (Kiel - Lightship in sight!), a few years after reunification, he describes how this came about and what he experienced at the time.

The GDR was in a deep crisis at the time. After the workers' uprising on 17 June 1953, the Socialist Unity Party proclaimed a "new course". A few years later, however, it had changed so much that it led to a dead end. Real existing socialism fell into a downward spiral. The economic decline of the young state frightened the citizens of the GDR. Hundreds of thousands, most of them well educated, flee to West Germany during these years. This increased the pressure on those who stayed at home, such as Schröder, who one day received the news that he was to join the State Security Service.

"Events occurred that confronted me with the decision: do you do what they want to force you to do, or do you refuse? Do you go your own way, in free self-determination, in your own decision and remain true to your previous principle of life in law, human decency, human dignity and humanism, or do you become a pig?"

It was in the air that something would happen. On 15 June 1961, head of state Walter Ulbricht stated that nobody intended to "build a wall". It was now clear that the state leadership would not stand by and watch the country bleed to death for much longer. The inner-German border has been fortified with barbed wire since the early 1950s anyway. There are rumours that border police have already made use of their weapons at this so-called control strip between the two German states.

And so even now, on the eve of the Wall's construction, escape hardly seems possible. Only Berlin still offered a few loopholes - and the Baltic Sea, if there was no control boat nearby. At the end of the summer of 1960, Schröder acquired the 75 square metre national cruiser "Rugia", which had been converted into a 50 square metre cruiser. He and his wife had long fancied the elegant sailing yacht, which at 12 metres in length was the second largest in its home port of Stralsund. Now she is up for sale. From the day of the purchase, the couple begin to prepare for their escape.

"The main thing was to get the paperwork done as quickly as possible, because God's mills grind slowly and GDR mills grind even more slowly. A sailing licence had to be applied for from the police. The authorisation required prior approval from the sailing club of which you were a member."

Crew is not explicitly briefed on escape plan

The "Rugia" also needs a registration certificate from the border police, which is requested from the Ministry of the Interior. This includes the licence plate number, which is valid for one year. Then a driving licence, issued by the GDR Maritime Office after a boat inspection on land and in the water. The biggest problem, however, was the crew. Sailing the six-and-a-half tonne, motorless vessel with just the two of them did not occur to the Schröders. Involving a crew in the project is out of the question. There is too great a risk that the plan will be discovered and they will all find themselves in court.

Finally, cousin Horst and his fiancée Traudi are hired. The two had often expressed their desire to go to the West and Schröders believed they would be doing them a favour if the promised "summer cruise" took them to Denmark - and not back to Stralsund.

"But since "Republikflucht" was a serious political offence, we couldn't tell our fellow sailors the real reason for our summer tour this year. Absolute silence had to be maintained. In conversations between Christa and me, not a word about our plan was allowed to reach anyone else's ears. Informers lurked around every corner. It was worse than in the Nazi era."

Schröder makes suggestions to his cousin so that he is not unprepared for the journey. They should take good clothes and plenty of money with them so that they could make some money on the way. Schröder also let slip during the conversation that they could call at Denmark. Visits abroad were strictly forbidden to sailors in the GDR, but they did happen during this time. Behind closed doors, people proudly told each other about such adventures afterwards. In winter, the Schröders gave their newly acquired boat a thorough overhaul, and after rigging it up, they got to know it under sail. They went to Hiddensee every weekend, often having to navigate the narrow fairways and making all harbour manoeuvres under sail.

During the week, the "Rugia" is kitted out. Getting several weeks' worth of provisions, personal belongings and even the entire household on board, piece by piece, without relatives, friends and neighbours becoming suspicious, and in such a way that no one would suspect anything if they were checked on board, is a feat. But it succeeds. And so, on Monday 24 July 1961, the Sommertörn crew set sail from Stralsund's Nordmole.

First escape attempt from the GDR

In westerly winds of 6-7 and rain, the "Rugia" first calls at Kloster on Hiddensee. Schröder and his wife only manage to hide their tension from their fellow sailors with great effort. This is further increased by the fact that the strong westerly wind keeps them here for a week. "But on 31 July 1961, the wind died down and shifted to the north-west, force 4. That was exactly the right wind for Warnemünde, where we were supposed to go first. We cast off at 9.30 am. Without having to cross, we sailed through the narrow channel towards the northern tip of the island of Hiddensee. There, between the elongated Bessin peninsula and the coast of Rügen, the Bug peninsula, there was usually a coastguard boat at anchor, blocking the exit to the open Baltic Sea."

At the control boat, the "Rugia" makes a break for it, and four armed border guards approach paddling in the rubber dinghy. As luck would have it, the boss is an old sailing friend of the skipper. A chat about old times replaces the inspection of the "Rugia", much to the astonishment of both the officers and the yacht crew, who are quickly allowed to continue towards the lake. At 7.30 pm, the "Rugia" moors in Warnemünde. Schröder wants to wait here for suitable conditions for the departure to Gedser in Denmark.

Doubts arise as to whether the decision is the right one. "We were also afraid of the unknown foreign country, would we be able to find our feet and find our way around? Where the capitalist exploiters were waiting for us was something we were constantly told, like a prayer wheel, every day. What did we know about the West? Our destination was Kiel, where we had relatives. We were young and wanted to work, we wanted to work hard and achieve something. I was now 28 years old, Christa 25, and the world was still open to us. If things didn't work out in West Germany, we could always move on to Denmark or Sweden. With our ship, we had all the options."

The very next day, the weather forecast gives us hope. A light southerly wind with poor visibility and fog banks is forecast for the second half of August. After an evening of distraction in Warnemünde's favourite pub, the skipper sticks his head out of the companionway the next morning and smells the fog straight away, the air is so damp. You can barely see two nautical miles, and the wind is actually blowing from the south at a force two. Schröder immediately realises that fate is beckoning him at this moment. It is the opportunity to escape par excellence, if not now, then never.

Did contact with GDR passenger ship thwart the escape?

Schröder is unable to present the logbook with destination Wismar at the police station, as it is not yet manned. Nevertheless, he sets off at 9.00 a.m. without permission. He doesn't want to come back anyway. Cousin Horst and his fiancée Traudi still don't know that. They are looking forward to an adventurous trip to Denmark. Until they are out of sight of land, Schröder steers the "Rugia" towards Wismar. But soon a grey soup swallows the ship and he heads directly north to Gedser.

And then the monstrous happens: the outline of a GDR passenger ship appears just ahead. Schröder thinks it's all over: "After about three hours of travelling, a passenger ship appeared out of the haze in front of us. I thought, now they've got us, there are people on board who can stop us." The ship does indeed approach. It turned out to be the "Ahlbeck" of the state-owned shipping company. It takes GDR passengers to Gedser every day, where there is a 15-minute stopover but no shore leave.

"My heart was in my mouth. The wheelhouse door opened and a man appeared on the bridge. He put his hands to his mouth in a shell shape and asked us, "Where are you going?" "To Wismar," I shouted back. He then pointed his arm at right angles to our previous course to the west. He probably thought we had lost our bearings. I raised my hand to show that I had understood and changed course.

Fortunately, the "Ahlbeck" is soon out of sight and the "Rugia" is back on course for Gedser. She arrives there at 2.30 p.m. on 2 August 1961. On the way, the guest country stander was made from a pillowcase and painted in Danish colours with oil paint. "I was now overcome with an indescribable feeling of happiness. We had made it, we were sailing into Gedser harbour as normal sailing tourists."

Crew wants to return to the GDR

But the quiet rejoicing doesn't last long. Cousin Horst is not at all enthusiastic when the skipper euphorically announces to him on the very first shore leave that he does not want to sail back to the GDR. The cousin says that he too has already prepared everything for the escape, but only wants to cross over via West Berlin at the end of August. He hadn't understood the hints and had left all his papers behind. "I was so disappointed that I could hardly think straight. I felt like a child who'd been given a long-awaited toy but had it snatched out of his hand straight away, saying it was just for fun. We were in a bad fix." Schröder says in his story.

In the evening, the crew of the "Rugia" is invited on a yacht from Germany. The hosts wanted to celebrate the successful escape. "It turned out to be a very merry evening. When we had told our story and my cousin's plan to return to the GDR, the West Berlin sailors thought I was crazy if I brought them back. They said I would be exposing my wife and myself to the risk of not being able to cross the sea border a second time. They thought my cousin and his fiancée's plan to leave via West Berlin was extremely risky. As West Berliners, they had first-hand knowledge of the political situation with the constantly growing movement of refugees from the GDR to West Berlin. They assessed the mood in such a way that the sector border could now be expected to be sealed off on a daily basis. That also meant closing the sea borders."

Together, they persuade Cousin Horst and his fiancée to sail further west on the "Rugia". But they are unable to change their minds. So what to do? Schröder doesn't want to force them. And neither did he want to send them home on the "Ahlbeck", because then they would have been treated like refugees from the republic. To give them time to think, the crew sailed 35 nautical miles further north-east to Klintholm on 3 August. Here, too, the crew is invited in the evening, and several West German sailors persuade them not to take any risks. But to no avail, cousin Horst wants to return to the GDR. And Schröder decides to sail them back. "I couldn't force them to take a step they didn't want to take. I also didn't want to start our new path in life by forcing myself on others. Everyone had to be free to make their own decisions about their lives."

On 5 August, eight days before the GDR is completely sealed off, the "Rugia" leaves Klintholm for Hiddensee. This return journey becomes a thrill. For hours, the ship lies in the doldrums within sight of the border posts off the Dornbusch. Night falls, morning comes, the wind picks up and we can finally make our way to Kloster. Miraculously, the border boat is not in its position and so the "Rugia" can sail on unmolested and moor in Kloster at 5.00 a.m. on 6 August. The relatives take the steamer to Stralsund at 10.00 am. "We had fulfilled their wish, brought them back, our conscience was clear."

Second escape attempt

However, Klaus Schröder now has considerable doubts about the success of the escape once again, which are increasingly tormenting him. "Getting through again now is as good as impossible. Our sailing licence was only valid until 15 August. Who would believe us on the guard ship that we wanted to make another trip to Wismar in seven days? Our crew list was no longer correct, two people were missing."

Schröder can hardly think straight now. To make matters worse, the neighbouring skippers report that they have also just returned from Denmark. There had been an intensive check on the guard boat, and because the officers had found tickets from Tivoli in the oilskin bags, their skipper had been arrested immediately. But Schröder's plan is set. The next day, he wanted to leave the waters of the GDR for good. But on 7 August, it was dead calm. The wait became an ordeal for the skipper and his wife. Finally, on 8 August, five days before the complete closure of the GDR border, Klaus Schröder and his wife cast off at 7.00 a.m. in Kloster harbour.

"We're not looking back. There's an easterly wind, force 2." They have to navigate the narrow channel, get stuck and, after a paralysing hour and a half, are towed free by a fishing cutter within sight of the guard boat. Schröder and his wife have a stroke of luck. The cutter tows the sailing yacht straight on through the narrow waters to the north, while the border control boat thunders southwards at full speed to change the watch. "The wind has now picked up to force 3 from the east, the best breeze for us. The cutter throws off the towline and we are alone again. I set sail and at around 10.30 a.m. we rounded the northern tip of Hiddensee. We passed through without being checked, but the watch station up on the steep bank must already have us in their binoculars. We set a clear course for Wismar again, which is roughly the same as the course to Gedser."

GDR helicopter and dinghy in the wake

Everything seems to be going smoothly until the humming of a GDR helicopter is heard. The aircraft comes closer and circles the "Rugia" so closely that skipper and pilot can look each other in the eye. Schröder is thunderstruck. Now they have him on the hook. But then visibility deteriorates. The "Rugia" passes the Baltic Sea towpath and a Danish fishing boat, but Danish territory has not yet been reached, and the sound of a GDR speedboat actually penetrates the humid air and gets closer and closer.

Once again, Klaus Schröder's heart slips into his trousers. They are being searched for. But the thickening fog provides cover, and the sound becomes quieter again. Out of fear, Schröder sets his course directly over Gedser Reef. "They shouldn't catch us, even if we went to the dogs." The next engine noise comes from the railway ferry "Theodor Heuss". The name is a first welcome from the Federal Republic of Germany. "At 5.30 pm on 8 August 1961, we docked in Gedser for the second time. We had finally reached free western land. Our escape was over."

Diary of an escape from the GDR

We are publishing this story with the kind permission of the publishing house Haag + Herchen, which published Klaus Schröder's autobiography in 1994.