Extraordinary flight to freedom in a handmade balloon
Two families made an extraordinary and dangerous escape from Eastgermanyinahot air balloon they had constructed themselves.
Peter Strelzyk, an electrician and former East German Air Force mechanic, and Günter Wetzel, a bricklayer, were colleagues at a plastics factory and had been friends for years.
They both desperately wanted to leave the country, and began discussing plans to do so.
Initially they planned to build a helicopter to carry them across the miles of fortified border between East and West Germany.
But unable to find an engine powerful enough to lift the craft, they instead settled on making a hot air balloon.
The pair planned to escape with their wives, Petra Wetzel and Doris Strelzyk, and four young children aged two to 15.
Strelzyk and Wetzel purchased 850 metres of cotton cloth from a department store after telling the astonished assistant that they needed it to make tent liners for their camping club.
Wetzel spent two weeks sewing the cloth into a balloon shaped bag on a 40-year-old manually operated sewing machine. Strelzyk spent the time building the gondola – made of a metal frame with a clothes lines wound around the outside for safety – and a burner which used liquid propane household gas.
But attempts to inflate the balloon completely failed because the cotton material was porous and the warmed air leaked out through it. It was a severe setback, but the pair were determined to continue.
They bought samples of different fabrics in local stores, including umbrella material, taffeta and nylon, and began a series of tests. The umbrella covering performed the best but was also the most expensive. They instead selected a synthetic kind of taffeta.
On July 3,1979, the
Strelzyk family attempted to escape. The balloon lifted from a forest clearing close to the order and climbed, but water vapour condensed on the fabric when they entered a cloud, causing it to descend.
They landed less than 600 feet from the border, close to a minefield, and spent the next nine hours crawling and crouching to reach cover. The balloon was discovered and the East German security police – the Stasi – began an investigation.
The pair resolved to try again – and quickly – before the Stasi caught up with them.
They doubled the balloon’s size, and took off at 2am on September 16.
The balloon initially caught fire but the blaze was extinguished, before tearing.
This meant much gas
had to be used to keep it inflated, severely limiting its range. The balloon had been spotted by an East German night watchman who raised the alarm causing the border searchlights to be switched on.
The propane ran out and they descended quickly, unsure if they had even crossed the border, with Wetzel breaking his leg in the crash.
The two families thought they were in the West – the farms looked different, machinary they had seen from above was more modern, and the street lights were a different colour – but they couldn’t be sure.
But two Bavarian state police officers who had seen the flame found the pair and confirmed their hopes – they were in West Germany, and free.