by Paul Simpson
The Bethke brothers admitted that had they known the Wall would be coming down within six months, they would probably have still gone ahead with the rescue, but there was no way that anyone could have foreseen the speed at which Communism collapsed. Across the summer of 1989, the Iron Curtain that had separated Communist Europe from the West since 1947 started to unravel, and on 9 November 1989, East Germans were given permission to travel to the West unconditionally. It wasn’t what the East German government had meant to do, but once the announcement was mistakenly made, it proved impossible to stem the tide.
The honour of being the last known escaper via Checkpoint Charlie went to Hans-Peter Spitzner. The teacher’s wife Ingrid had been granted permission to visit relatives in Austria, and Spitzner was determined to follow her with their seven-year-old daughter Peggy. Relying on the rule that military personnel’s vehicles were not searched when they went through the border, Spitzner tried to find an American soldier who would help him and Peggy. For two days, his search was fruitless but on 18 August 1989, just as he was on the point of giving up, a young serviceman, Eric Yaw, agreed to assist.
Persuading Peggy that this was just an adventure on their way to see her mother, Spitzner and his daughter squeezed into the boot of Yaw’s Toyota Camry. After an agonising half hour, during which the car was stopped at Checkpoint Charlie, the boot was opened and they were in the West. Although the border patrol used infra-red cameras to check for escapers – at one stage they had even used X-rays without thought of the consequences to those exposed to them – Spitzner believed that the car’s black paintwork, already hot in the August sunshine, masked their presence. All that remained was to stop Ingrid from returning to the GDR, and a hastily dictated note to the receptionist at her hotel ensured that the family was reunited.
Official figures suggest that there were at least 5,075 successful escape attempts from Berlin during the twenty-eight years that the Wall stood. No one knows how many plans were foiled by the Stasi. At least 136 people died trying to flee from the GDR. The watchtowers and the death strips may have been dismantled, and some of those who committed state-sponsored murder found guilty, but there are still many in the city who remember the time when escaping was worth anything – even losing your life.
Fact vs. Fiction
Disney’s Night Crossing is one of the few English-language fact-based films about escaping from East Germany. It takes some liberties with the facts (the Stasi were nowhere near as close on the families’ heels as the movie indicates) but the story itself was dramatic enough that it didn’t need much spicing up. The 2001 German film Der Tunnel is based on the creation of Tunnel 29; the 1963 West German film Durchbruch Lok 234 takes the 1961 train breakthrough as its source.
Spy thrillers of the 1960s used the Wall as a backdrop: the end of John Le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, both the original novel and its film version starring Richard Burton, sees Alec Leamas choose not to complete his escape from East Berlin. Funeral in Berlin, the second movie featuring Michael Caine as British agent Harry Palmer (unnamed in Len Deighton’s original book) is centred on an escape attempt; the 1972 TV series Jason King deliberately used a similar plot in the episode “A Page Before Dying” by Tony Williamson.
Sources:
Beck, Kristin: Verschleierte Flucht: Mein Weg in die Freiheit (Ullstein Taschenbuchvlg, 2006)
Berlin Film Unit documentary: The Wall (Berlin Film Unit, 1962: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nch5MbnvTqY)
Der Spiegel, 28 March 1962: “DER DRITTE MANN WARTETE IM GRAB”
Des Moines Register, 12 September 1966: “5 Bulldoze Way Into West Under Hail of Red Bullets”
Funder, Anna: Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall (Granta, 2003)
Hertle, Hans-Herman: The Berlin Wall Story (Christoph Links, 2011)
http://www.ballonflucht.de/html/englisch.html: Günter Wetzel’s own account (translated by Gary Holland) of their flight. Note, where this contradicts other accounts, this has been followed.
National Geographic documentary: The Berlin Wall: Escape to Freedom (Michael Hoff Productions, 2006)
Palm Beach Daily News, 8 December 1961: “Sensational Escape Story Told by Harry Deterling”
Salt Lake Tribune, 15 September 1964: “Sharp US Note Protests Gunfire at Berlin Wall”
Taylor, Frederick: The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961-9 November 1989 (Bloomsbury, 2009)
The Florence Times, 30 January 1963: “Trapeze Artist Makes Slide to Freedom” from an AP report
The Milwaukee Journal, 24 November 1969: “German Escapees Devise New Tricks”
AP News: 10 March 1988: “Three East Germans in Truck Smash Border Barriers at ‘Bridge of Spies’”
Popular Mechanics, November 1983: “Daring High-Wire Ride to Freedom”
PART IV: GETTING OFF THE ISLAND
The Hour of Need
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, daring prison breaks have inspired films and television series. But escapes from imprisonment have always been a muse for writers, painters and poets, and the bid for freedom by Mary Queen of Scots from Lochleven Castle in the Scottish Highlands has been a fruitful source for many across the years. Eighteenth-century poet Robert Allan evokes the dangerous conditions on the loch in his poem “Put Off, And Row Wi’ Speed” (also known more prosaically as “Queen Mary’s Escape from Loch Leven”):
Put off, put off, and row with speed,
For now’s the time, and the hour of need!
To oars, to oars, and trim the bark,
Nor Scotland’s queen be a warder’s mark!
Yon light that plays round the castle’s moat
Is only the warder’s random shot!
Put off, put off, and row with speed,
For now is the time, and the hour of need!
Those pond’rous keys shall the kelpies keep,
And lodge in their caverns dark and deep;
Nor shall Lochleven’s towers or hall,
Hold thee, our lovely lady, in thrall;
Or be the haunt of traitors, sold,
While Scotland has hands and hearts so bold;
Then, steersmen, steersmen, on with speed,
For now is the time, and the hour of need!
Hark! the alarum-bell hath rung,
And the warder’s voice hath treason sung;
The echoes to the falconet’s roar,
Chime swiftly to the dashing oar.
Let town, and hall, and battlements gleam,
We steer by the light of the tapers’ beam;
For Scotland and Mary, on with speed,
Now, now is the time, and the hour of need!
In June 1567, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, which dominated a small island in the centre of the twelve-mile-wide Loch Leven. She was taken there, supposedly for her own safety, following an encounter at Carberry Hill in which her forces deserted her, and managed to escape ten months later – although her freedom would be short-lived.
Mary had become queen when aged only six days old, and her reign had seen considerable infighting among the nobles of Scotland. Brought up in France while regents ruled in her place in Scotland, her first marriage was to Francis, Dauphin of France, and for a brief time, she was French Queen until Francis’ death in December 1560. She returned to Scotland, and eventually married Lord Darnley, but it was a difficult union. He was killed in February 1567, and his house destroyed; the man many thought responsible for it (although he was acquitted) was the Earl of Bothwell, who Mary married in May 1567.
Neither of Mary’s marriages had gone down well with the Scottish nobility, or indeed with the English Queen Elizabeth. Darnley’s Catholicism meant that Mary’s half-brother, Earl of Moray, joined with other Protestant lords openly rebelling against her. The marriage to Bothwell amazed many who couldn’t believe that Mary had wed the man who may well have been responsible for the death of her child’s father. Eventually twenty-six peers, known as the confederate lords, rais
ed an army against Bothwell and Mary; a meeting at Carberry Hill on 15 June became one-sided, as Mary’s troops deserted her during the discussions. Bothwell was allowed safe passage from Carberry, and vanished to Scandinavia, hoping to raise an army to save Mary. However, he was imprisoned in Denmark, and held in jail for ten years, during which time he gradually went insane. He died in 1578.
Mary was taken to Edinburgh, and was horrified by the reaction of the crowd: they branded her a whore and called for her to be drowned. She was imprisoned at the lord provost’s house at Craigmillar and tried to call to the crowds through the windows. That worried her jailers, who thought she might be able to swing them round to support her, so without even letting her finish the first meal she had eaten since the abortive battle at Carberry Hill (she had been worried about being poisoned while at Craigmillar), she was taken out for the journey to Lochleven, fifty or so miles north of the city.
Just over a month after Mary arrived at Lochleven, in the care of Sir William Douglas, the Earl of Moray’s half-brother, she miscarried twins, and shortly after that she was forced to abdicate the crown of Scotland in favour of her son, James VI – with the Earl of Moray placed as regent. James was crowned on 29 July, but, even as she regained her health following the miscarriage, Mary was resolute that her story was not yet over.
She still had some supporters, not least Queen Elizabeth of England, who was keen to ensure that Mary wasn’t executed in case it gave any of her own opponents bright ideas about the way to handle arguments with the reigning monarch. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who had been sent in a vain attempt by Elizabeth to prevent Mary from marrying Darnley in 1565, was now dispatched from the English court to try to help, although he was unable to secure Mary’s release – it didn’t help that Mary refused to turn her back on Bothwell. Throckmorton was recalled to England before he could provide any more practical assistance, although he believed that his presence had been enough to stop the Scots from dealing with Mary in a more permanent way.
During the autumn of 1567, Mary considered various avenues of escape. Two young men – George Douglas, the younger brother of her keeper, and teenager Willie Douglas, believed to be his orphaned cousin – fell under her spell, and passed on messages to the mainland for her supporters. Assorted plots were dreamed up, including smuggling Mary out in a box, but before any of these could be put into effect, winter fell, and any idea of escaping across the loch became impossible.
Mary’s first serious escape attempt came in late March 1568. She disguised herself as one of the washerwomen who came over from the mainland to work at the castle. Wrapping a muffler around her face, she came close to succeeding, but the boatman rowing her back became suspicious, and went to pull the muffler down. Mary put a hand up to stop him, and the boatman realized her fingers were “fair and white”, hardly those of someone whose hands were submerged in water all day. He turned the boat round and took the queen back to her imprisonment. Some reports suggest that as much for his own safety as hers, he said nothing about it, but George was banished from the island around this time, and continued coming up with schemes.
Matters weren’t helped by an odd wager laid by Sir Archibald Napier, Laird of Merchiston that “by the fifth of May Her Majesty would be out of Lochleven”. This made William Douglas all the more suspicious, and the guard around Mary was increased. This didn’t curtail her freedom more than it already was – she was allowed out on boating expeditions on the loch, for example, during which her servants pretended that she had been able to flee – but meant that any escape activity would have to be very clandestine.
Queen Mary’s trusted maid Mary Seton became one of the cornerstones of the eventual plan that was laid. She was to remain behind at Lochleven, posing as her mistress for the short period that might prevent a hue and cry from being launched too precipitously. Her father, Lord Seton, was one of Mary’s staunchest allies, and worked with George Douglas on the plan. Mary would write her instructions on a handkerchief using a piece of charcoal, since she was prevented from using pen and paper, and young Willie would take these with him over to the mainland to pass to George and Lord Seton.
Although further ideas were considered – including a suggestion that the queen could perhaps go to a part of the perimeter wall that wasn’t as well watched, climb over it, and drop the seven feet to the far side, which was abandoned when a maidservant badly sprained her foot trying it out – in the end, it was decided that Mary would simply walk out through the main gate. Willie therefore suggested that for the Mayday weekend, he should act as the Abbot of Unreason (a figure more usually associated with the Christmas revelries, rather than May), which gave him licence to behave in an apparently drunken and mad manner. Under cover of this, on Sunday 2 May 1568, he was able to damage all bar one of the boats on the island. William Douglas found this suspicious, but there were no obvious other signs that his charge was trying to escape. At the same time, George Douglas, Lord Seton and friends were waiting on the far side of the loch, their horses saddled up, ready to whisk Mary off to safety; William Douglas apparently noticed their presence but didn’t connect it to Willie’s actions.
To further allay Douglas’s suspicions, Queen Mary pretended to feel faint, and went back to her room. Once there, she changed clothes with her servant, and waited for Willie’s signal. William Douglas usually kept the castle keys safely with him, but in his apparently drunken state, Willie was able to cover them with a handkerchief and purloin them. As soon as he had them, he went out to the courtyard, and signalled to Mary. She descended, along with another of her servants, and Willie used the keys to let them out of the main gate, then locked the gate behind them and threw the keys in the loch, where they were found centuries later when the loch was drained.
The journey across the loch was unremarkable, although it was clear that some of the washerwomen had recognized Mary as she departed from the island, and Mary was greeted with elation by George Douglas, Lord Seton and a party of fifty men. They sped south on horseback to North Queen’s Ferry, crossed the Firth of Forth on the ferry, and landed at South Queen’s Ferry before heading to Lord Seton’s home at West Niddry. It was a brief respite of freedom before Mary’s further imprisonment began. After she raised an army of around 6,000 men, the forty-five-minute long Battle of Langside followed on 13 May, which culminated in Mary’s defeat. She rode to seek refuge in England, and was taken into protective custody. She never regained her liberty: she became the figurehead in numerous plots, and eventually was convicted of treason. Mary was beheaded at Fotheringay Castle on 8 February 1587.
During her exile and restrained liberty in England, she didn’t forget those who had helped her escape from Lochleven Castle. She provided money so that George Douglas could marry a French heiress who had taken his fancy; “services like his ought never to be forgotten”, Mary wrote to his uncle. Willie Douglas stayed in her service until the very end, and was remembered in her will. The Seton family enjoyed favour under Mary’s son, James VI, when he became James I of England under the Act of Union following the death of Queen Elizabeth.
Sources:
www.marie-stuart.com “Lochleven Castle & Mary, Queen of Scots”
Harper’s Monthly, December 1850: “The Escape Of Queen Mary From Lochleven Castle”
Fraser, Antonia: Mary Queen of Scots (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, rev. 2009)
Escaping the Gentlest Jail
In 1814, many of the allies in the sixth coalition believed that the greatest threat to peace in Europe was finally under lock and key – or at the very least, on an island where he could cause no more trouble. The man himself, Napoleon Bonaparte, said, “I do not think of anything beyond my little island. I could have sustained the war for twenty years if I had wished it. I exist no longer for the world. I am a dead man. I am occupied in nothing but my family and my retreat, my house, my cows, and my mules.”
He was lying. On 26 February 1815, the French Emperor escaped from the island of Elba and travelled back to Franc
e. For the next hundred days, he proved that he had lost none of his ambition, until his forces were routed at the battle of Waterloo, and he was sent into an exile from which there was no escape.
The Corsican general had risen to prominence during the French Revolution, becoming First Consul in 1799, and crowning himself Emperor on 2 December 1804. The tide turned against him after his attempted invasion of Russia in 1812, and by spring 1814, his army was massively reduced in size, and the coalition forces had even taken control of Paris. When he decided to march on the capital, his marshals confronted him, and Napoleon realized he had lost control. He tried to abdicate in favour of his son but the allies would not accept this, so on 11 April 1814, he declared that since he was apparently the “sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe . . . he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to do in the interests of France.” In return, under the Treaty of Fontainebleu, he was given “free possession and the peaceable enjoyment in full sovereignty of the island of Elba, and of the Duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla”. It might sound like a generous assignment of territory. It wasn’t: it was just creating a jail cell on a rather larger scale than the usual six foot by six foot garret commonly given to prisoners.
And like many prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment – because regardless of whether he was allowed to keep his title of emperor, or receive a hefty pension as laid down in the treaty, that’s what this was – Napoleon considered ending it all rather than endure many years’ confinement. He tried to commit suicide using a pill that he had kept with him since the retreat from Moscow two years earlier, but it had lost its efficacy.