Witness History
Witness History
Escaping from East Berlin
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August 10, 2021
9 minutes
Available for over a year
How a young West German student helped East Berliners escape communism at the height of the Cold War. Volker Heinz told Robin Lustig how he worked with a Syrian diplomat to smuggle people across the Berlin Wall in the boot of the diplomat's car. From March to September 1966 the pair managed to help more than 60 people to make the crossing.
This programme is a rebroadcast
(Photo: East German border guards in 1966 scanning the Berlin Wall. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)