Girrmann Group

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The Girrmann Group , also known as the company travel agency , was a student escape aid group around Detlef Girrmann , Dieter Thieme and Bodo Köhler, which arose in the student union of the Free University of Berlin (FU) after the Wall was built. It was active from 1961 to around 1965 and brought about 500 East Berlin and GDR citizens to freedom.

history

composition

The core members of the group were over 30 years old when the Berlin Wall was built and no longer typical students. After an interrupted degree in journalism, Detlef Girrmann worked as head of the funding department at the FU's student union . Dieter Thieme was also employed there, who wanted to earn money after passing the first state examination in law before finishing his studies. The construction of the wall on August 13, 1961 prevented around 500 East Berlin FU students, for whose support Girrmann and Thieme were responsible, from continuing their studies. Bodo Köhler later joined the group. He headed two houses of the conservative association " House of the Future " and wrote a dissertation in theology . After the wall was built, he was initially active as a self-employed escape helper until the Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution made contact with Girrmann and Thieme; Koehler knew the latter from university. They recruited helpers and couriers mainly from student circles. Girrmann, Thieme and Koehler did most of the organizational work. Then there was the American student Joan Glenn, who came to Berlin in 1961 and stayed longer.

After the group's activities became known in the GDR and the student union received a reputation for organizing escape aid, the group moved its planning to Goethestrasse in one of the houses run by Bodo Köhler. This also offered the opportunity to briefly accommodate couriers and refugees. When selecting the refugees, preference was given to those who were to be drafted into the National People's Army or who were under observation by the Ministry for State Security (MfS). They kept lists of all activities, escape routes, names of refugees and couriers and times.

After the problems on the Scandinavian tour and the arrests of the couriers and their convictions, both the tactics and the structure of the group changed. Burkhart Veigel left the group and founded his own escape aid group. Girrmann, Thieme and Köhler often worked separately from one another. The arrests and show trials meant that the Girrmann Group received increased media attention.

The MfS held the Girrmann Group responsible for building many tunnels, even if, as in the case of the Wollankstrasse escape tunnel , it was not involved in the construction.

motivation

The group did not develop any fixed hierarchies, division of tasks or programmatic principles, but showed the greatest professionalism among the non-commercial escape aid groups. The informal network structure of the group was able to react flexibly to rapidly changing conditions at the border. The motivation of the group members is well documented by tape interviews that they conducted with Uwe Johnson in 1964 . The group acted from idealistic motives without subscribing to any particular ideology. The three most prominent members of the group were SPD members or sympathized with the party.

Girrmann and Thieme were disappointed that only very few of the refugees stayed in contact with them.

financing

While the initial escape aid could still be financed from its own resources, later methods cost more than the group could finance itself. Attempts to get funds from the student union failed, so the Girrmann group asked the refugees for voluntary donations. The group was unable to gain direct state support, but in 1962 obtained financial support for the refugees from a secret fund of the Federal Ministry for all-German issues . Part of this money was passed on to the Girrmann Group.

Scandinavian tours in particular were expensive. Fake passports and fares exceeded the group's usual budget. The procurement of passports was made easier by contacting the CDU group, as was the financing of the Scandinavian tours.

Since the financing remained problematic and they did not want to oblige the refugees to make any payments, the group decided in March 1962 to sell their story to the magazine Der Spiegel for 10,000 marks . On March 26, 1962, the article with the title The third man waits in the grave appeared: “Company travel agency” - The organized escape through the wall . This was the first time that the group presented itself in this way in public and openly accepted funds. Other escape aid groups followed suit and sold their stories and the image rights to them to the international press, for example the group around the Italians Domenico Sesta and Luigi Spina who built tunnel 29 with Hasso Herschel in September 1962 .

activities

Different methods were used to help people escape. These included escape tunnels that they planned themselves or they helped to build.

The "passport number"

They started their escape assistance with the “passport number”, in which East Berlin students were looking for the best possible doppelgangers in West Berlin in order to use the West passports - later also foreign ones - to escape. When entry into the GDR was no longer possible for West Berliners, they extended their search to the Federal Republic. The method proved to be complex and had to be discontinued after the GDR changed the entry procedure. About 50 people were smuggled out of the GDR in this way.

Escape through the sewers

Another method used until October 1961 was to escape through the city's sewer system. With this method, barriers erected by the GDR had to be cut through or submerged. Entering the sewer system in the east of the city was difficult because the heavy manhole covers had to be lifted. The Girrmann Group initially used East Berliners as "cover men", but they increasingly fled with them and betrayed the escape route through the open canal. Therefore, West Germans or foreigners were used for this support in the following years. To camouflage the exit on the western side, a modified VW bus with the bottom cut open was driven over the manhole cover. Over 150 people left the GDR in this way.

Scandinavia tours

The “Scandinavia Tour” worked similarly to the passport number. The Girrmann Group used an international train connection from the Ostbahnhof to Copenhagen via the East Sea ports of the GDR. Western travelers were able to use this route from the Zoologischer Garten station and were only superficially checked during transit with the S-Bahn through East Berlin. The refugees were given forged passports and tickets at the Ostbahnhof, which had been bought and stamped at the Bahnhof Zoo. So they were able to flee via Copenhagen, where they were received by Bodo Köhler.

While the CDU group successfully used the Scandinavian tour for a year and a half, the Girrmann group suffered a setback after six weeks. On February 17, 1962, some refugees were arrested on the tour, as well as four members of the Girrmann group on the next day who wanted to test what caused the tour to fail. In the person of the Greek student Georgis Raptis, the MfS succeeded in smuggling an unofficial employee into the organization who was only exposed after the German reunification.

further activities

After the problems on the Scandinavian tour, the Girrmann Group looked for other ways to escape. Again and again there were setbacks and arrests. The courier Joachim Pudelski was caught while he was carrying forged passports to Leipzig and sentenced to twelve years in prison. Two other couriers received prison sentences of 7 and 15 years in May 1962.

Cooperations

In 1962, the Girrmann group came into contact with another escape aid group in the vicinity of the West Berlin CDU, which Fritz Klöckling led. This group had good contacts with the Federal Government, was financially better equipped and wanted to bring party members who remained in the East from the GDR. The CDU group joined the Scandinavian tour, among other things. Through contacts with the Belgian sister party, a municipality was able to be persuaded to issue real passports with false data and pictures of those willing to flee. In total, the CDU group smuggled 250 people into the West by 1963.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : SED public enemy - GDR escape helper Girrmann died. In: morgenpost.de . April 12, 2011, accessed November 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Detjen 2005, p. 97f.
  3. ↑ a b c Detjen 2005, p. 110f.
  4. ↑ Detjen 2005, p. 111
  5. ↑ Detjen 2005, p. 113
  6. ↑ a b Detjen 2005, p. 118.
  7. ↑ a b Detjen 2005, p. 102f.
  8. ↑ Detjen 2005, p. 108f.
  9. ↑ a b c Detjen 2005, p. 114f.
  10. ↑ a b Detjen 2005, p. 119f.
  11. ↑ The third man was waiting in the grave: "Company travel agency" - the organized escape through the wall. In: Der Spiegel 13/1962. March 27, 1962, pp. 40-55 , accessed November 12, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Detjen 2005, pp. 106f.
  13. ↑ Detjen 2005, p. 117.
  14. ↑ Detjen 2005, p. 116