"Eyewitnesses in Conversation" – Escape Helper Burkhart Veigel

Three of his escape operations were never discovered in flagrante by the East German secret police (Stasi): the legendary “Double” Tour, in which an escape helper used a clever trick to pass through border control twice and thus obtain a registered ID card for a refugee – enabling about 100 people to reach the West; the Cadillac escapes, during which a refugee was hidden in the dashboard of a car and smuggled across the border – about 200 refugees over three years; and the “French Tour”, in which a French Allied officer was able to take up to 14 refugees across the border in a single trip – in this way, about 250 refugees managed to reach West Germany from the GDR over four years.

After 37 years working as an orthopedic surgeon and trauma specialist in Stuttgart, Burkhart Veigel returned to Berlin in 2007 to research and write about escape and escape assistance. From this work emerged, among others, two books: “Wege durch die Mauer – Fluchthilfe und Stasi zwischen Ost und West” (Paths Through the Wall – Escape Assistance and the Stasi Between East and West) and “FREI”, a novel about an East–West love story, which he co-wrote with his wife, the author Roswitha Quadflieg.

At the end of the event, there will be time for book sales and signings.

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