Escape From East Germany: A 1989 Journey For Freedom

When Travel Means More Than Adventure

In late summer 1989, I boarded a train to Poland with more on my mind than a visit to my girlfriend. I was 20 and wanted to leave East Germany. The trip was supposed to bring me closer to a way out, although the journey I eventually made was not the one I had planned.

East Germany felt restrictive to me in ways that reached well beyond the border. At the same time, events around us were beginning to change. I wanted a different life, but wanting it did not make the choices—or the possible consequences—simple.

This is my memory of those weeks, written many years later. I can describe what I intended, what I feared and what happened to me; I cannot know every conversation taking place around me or how a different decision would have ended.

A Girlfriend, a Cover Story, and a Secret Mission

The official purpose was to visit my Polish girlfriend in the north. My other plan was to reach Warsaw and join East Germans seeking refuge through the West German embassy. I hoped the political pressure surrounding the embassies might eventually allow me to travel to the West.

I told my girlfriend what I intended to do. She introduced me to a friend connected with Solidarność, the Polish movement that had challenged communist rule. Having people willing to help mattered, even though nobody could remove the uncertainty.

A Note, a Plan, and a Growing Sense of Danger

Her friend wrote a letter. If I was detained before reaching the embassy, my girlfriend was to take it to the party office in Warsaw. I understood it as a possible way to make someone aware of what had happened, not a guarantee that I would be protected.

To Warsaw—With Company and Fear

My girlfriend, another friend and I travelled to Warsaw. I worried about being stopped, about the consequences of failure and about the possibility of not seeing my family again if I succeeded. The freedom I wanted came with a separation I had not found a way to resolve.

The Overcrowded Monastery: Hopes, Fears, and Second Thoughts

The embassy was overcrowded, and additional accommodation had been arranged at a monastery. We went there. I remember a garden full of people waiting and a situation with no clear timetable. Nobody could tell me how long it might take or what would happen next.

I had imagined reaching a place of refuge as the decisive step. Standing in the garden, I realised that arriving did not end the decisions.

My thoughts kept returning to my family in East Germany. I feared they could face questioning or other consequences because of my actions. I did not know what would happen to them. The possibility alone weighed heavily on me.

In the end, I decided I could not go through with it. My friends supported me, and I left with them. It was not the outcome I had travelled towards, but it was the decision I made in that moment.

The Embassy Trains—and My Journey Home

The news from Prague soon changed the atmosphere again. On 30 September 1989, Hans-Dietrich Genscher announced that the East Germans sheltering at the West German embassy there would be allowed to leave. The German government’s chronology records that announcement; the refugee trains travelled through East German territory on their way west.

I remember leaving Poland on the same day as those historic trains were passing through East Germany. There was even a possibility of seeing one along the way, although I do not claim that I actually did. I was travelling back into the country that so many people on those trains were finally leaving.

In my luggage were Solidarność publications, a poster signed by Lech Wałęsa and Gorbachev badges. I had also hidden the letter among my clothes. Carrying these things made the border crossing feel considerably more worrying than an ordinary return from a visit.

Border Crossing: The Longest Stop of My Life

I chose the southern route through Wrocław and Görlitz, thinking the detour might be safer. I could not know whether it would attract more or less attention. At the border, I was told to leave the train and bring my bags.

Guards searched my belongings in a separate room. The badges and poster drew their attention and were taken away. I was particularly worried about the letter.

When the search reached the place where I had put it, the letter was no longer there. I later believed my girlfriend had quietly removed it. I cannot say what would have happened if the guards had found it, but its absence was an enormous relief.

The Interrogation: Suspicion on All Sides

I was then taken to another room, with large machines and little light. I did not understand what the equipment was. Waiting there without knowing what would happen next made the situation more frightening.

An officer questioned me about my Warsaw tickets and why I had been in the city. I kept to the explanation that it had been a sightseeing visit with my girlfriend.

The questioning continued. I had turned back from my plan, yet now had to explain a journey that still looked suspicious to the people checking it. I remember how little control I felt over what happened next.

Freedom—For Now

After about four hours, I was allowed to continue. I returned to the train exhausted, trying to make sense of the detention and the decision I had made in Warsaw.

The wish to leave had not gone away. I resolved to pursue an application to emigrate, even if the process took a long time. I could not have known how quickly the political situation would change after that.

I eventually left East Germany in November 1989, two days before the Wall fell. In my Arnstadt story, I reflect on the hometown I left behind.