Lecture »Escape across the Baltic Sea«
Behind the beach idyll lay a system of border surveillance. From August 1961 to September 1989, 5,636 people attempted to flee the GDR via the western Baltic Sea. Only 913 succeeded, 135 people drowned. These figures show the tragedy of the Baltic Sea escapes, which entailed a high level of risk. Frigate Captain Ingo Pfeiffer's review of 40 years of the »blue border« documents the border regime and its effects on the Baltic Sea escapes. The 6th Coastal Border Brigade (GBK), the People's Police and their volunteers, customs, passport control units and the Stasi state security were all involved. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, border surveillance on the GDR Baltic Sea coast also came to an end.
Lecture:
Dr Ingo Pfeiffer, former frigate captain, Wandlitz
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