Annemarie Reffert

Annemarie Reffert (born April 5, 1943 in Eckartsberga ) was the first person from the GDR to cross the border to the Federal Republic of Germany without any major formalities after the opening of the border in 1989.

She drove on November 9, 1989 immediately after the announcement of the "New Travel Regulations" by the then Politburo member Günter Schabowski (around 7 p.m.) on the Berlin-Helmstedt motorway in the direction of the Marienborn border crossing point (GÜSt) . Together with her then sixteen-year-old daughter Juliane, she reached the departure point around 9.15 p.m. She cited the press conference broadcast live on television and wanted to "just see if the border is open". The first border crossings were only opened in Berlin about 15 minutes later . On her return that same night, she was interviewed by West German television journalists and emphasized that, although she wanted to visit more often, “but never quite”.

Annemarie Reffert studied human medicine at the university clinics in Budapest and Magdeburg , assisted for a year at the district hospital in Rudolstadt and received her doctorate at the Institute of Pharmacology at the Medical Academy Magdeburg . After the specialist examination in the field of anesthesiology in 1971, she took up the position of chief physician for anesthesia at the specialist hospital ( Gommern ) -Vogelsang on April 1, 1973 . Here she worked until her retirement in April 2008. From March 1990 to December 2006 she was a councilor for the SPD in Gommern.

Annemarie Reffert is the mother of the author and playwright Thilo Reffert , who set his mother's journey to music in his 2009 radio play The Security of a Closed Passenger Cell. The work was awarded the War Blind Radio Play Prize.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ the daily newspaper , article: Museum for Passport Control, July 26, 2003
2. ↑ Focus: "Schabowski said we can"
3. ↑ Deutsche Welle report on YouTube
4. ↑ Radio play The security of a closed passenger cell on the website of the author Thilo Reffert