Winfried Freudenberg

Winfried Freudenberg in the memorial window of the Berlin Wall Memorial

Memorial plaque , Erdmann-Graeser-Weg, Berlin-Zehlendorf

Winfried Freudenberg (born August 29, 1956 in Osterwieck ; † March 8, 1989 in West Berlin ) had a fatal accident while attempting to escape with a gas balloon from East to West Berlin. He was the last to die while trying to get from East to West Berlin.

Life

In 1979 the Strelzyk and Wetzel families' balloon flight caused a stir throughout Germany. In preparation for his escape from the GDR in 1989, the electrical engineer Winfried Freudenberg took a job in the gas supply division of the VEB Energiekombinat Berlin . Together with his wife, he constructed a balloon that should serve as a means of escape.

After the weather report announced favorable conditions for the night of March 7th to 8th, 1989, the couple drove near the Blankenburg S-Bahn station to the gas regulator station of the East Berlin Energy Combine on Schäferstege Street . There they assembled the balloon, which consisted of several polyethylene foils glued together, over which a carrier net was stretched, and filled it with natural gas . During the preparations, they were watched by a passer-by who notified the People's Police . The couple noticed the approach of the police vehicle around 2:00 a.m. The balloon was not completely filled so that it could not have supported the weight of either person. Winfried Freudenberg's wife fled on foot and was arrested in front of her apartment door. Winfried Freudenberg cut the tether and quickly mounted. The police refused to shoot the balloon because of the risk of explosion.

Winfried Freudenberg crossed the border to West Berlin in his balloon. He drove over West Berlin for several hours until he crashed over Berlin-Zehlendorf , resulting in death, and was found in the front yard of a villa on Limastrasse .

The reconstruction of the balloon flight revealed that it probably rose to an altitude of over 2000 m immediately after take-off. Temperatures of −6 ° C prevailed there at the time. Winfried Freudenberg was only lightly dressed. He crossed the Tegel airfield and tried to draw attention to his emergency situation by dropping ballast, but he did not succeed and allowed the balloon to continue to rise. Air traffic control didn't have him on the radar either. At dawn a walker spotted the balloon high above the Teufelsberg. At the time when his strength waned, Winfried Freudenberg had almost completely crossed West Berlin from north to south and would have reached GDR territory a few hundred meters further near Kleinmachnow. But that didn't happen. It is possible that Winfried Freudenberg initiated a precipitous descent. There were no valves for controlled gas release. Freudenberg had a fatal accident. He was buried in his home town of Lüttgenrode .

Web links

Commons : Winfried Freudenberg - Collection of Pictures

personal data
SURNAME	Freudenberg, Winfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German GDR refugee and last victim of the Berlin Wall
DATE OF BIRTH	August 29, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH	Osterwieck
DATE OF DEATH	March 8, 1989
Place of death	West Berlin