{"id":85241,"date":"2019-03-01T14:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T18:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=85241"},"modified":"2019-03-01T10:41:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T14:41:26","slug":"weekend-open-thread-schwimmer-schwimmt-in-die-freiheit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=85241","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Open Thread \u2013 \u201cSchwimmer schwimmt in die Freiheit\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Berlin Wall wasn\u2019t the only hazardous venue East German prisoners<\/del> residents used while attempting to leave their prison-state. Some attempted to cross the Inner German Border. Others attempted to escape by sea.<\/p>\n

Escaping by sea to the West was difficult. Over 5,500 are estimated to have tried. Less than 1,000 succeeded; at least 174 are believed to have died in the attempt. The remainder were caught and imprisoned by East Germany.<\/p>\n

Here is one example. The planned swim in this case was approximately 25 kilometers<\/i> \u2013 or 15 1\/2 miles<\/i>.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/b><\/p>\n

Axel Mitbauer was a member of the East German national swim team. He specialized in the 400m swim.<\/p>\n

Mitbauer was well-treated as an elite East German athlete. However, Mitbauer\u2019s foreign travel for international competition exposed him to the reality of life in the West as compared to conditions in East Germany. He realized that his home nation was lying to its people. He came to regard East Germany as \u201ca lawless state\u201d, and determined to use his swimming ability to leave East Germany.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Mitbauer, the Stasi had observed him talking frequently with West German athletes. He was arrested, and spent seven weeks in a Stasi-run prison.<\/p>\n

He was released. In doing so, the Stasi had erred.<\/p>\n

Mitbauer obtained a large amount of petroleum jelly (30 tubes). During his escape, he would use this to slather his body with the substance as insulation.<\/p>\n

He trained by swimming in cold-water ponds at local coal-fired power plants. And on 17 August 1969, Mitbauer acted.<\/p>\n

He started at the Boltenhagen resort area. His plan was to swim to Lubeck bay \u2013 approximately 25 km (15 1\/2 miles) away.<\/p>\n

Mitbauer had previously observed the coastal border guards in that area, and knew that they turned their searchlights off periodically for roughly a minute at a time to allow them to cool. So he got ready \u2013 and when the guards turned the searchlights off around 9PM, he acted. <\/p>\n

He entered the water. He had about 1 minute to cross both sandbars to open water before the lights were to be turned back on.<\/p>\n

Mitbauer made it across the sandbars in time. And he also made it to freedom \u2013 after swimming for 4 hours in 18C (64 Fahrenheit) water with only petroleum jelly for insulation. <\/p>\n

Mitbauer reached a buoy at around 1AM, and climbed onto it. At around 7AM, a West German ship spotted him and took him aboard \u2013 and the rest of the way to freedom. Had that not happened Mitbauer had planned to continue the swim after warming up in the sun that morning.<\/p>\n

As of 2009, Mitbauer was living in Switzerland, and was working as a swimming coach for elite talent in Karlsruhe. <\/p>\n

Sources<\/u>:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/top-athlete-escaped-the-gdr-using-his-aquatic-talents\/a-4862742<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/cities\/2014\/oct\/17\/surfboards-and-submarines-the-secret-escape-of-east-germans-to-copenhagen <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/translate.google.com\/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Axel_Mitbauer&prev=search<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

. . .<\/b><\/p>\n

Enjoy the WOT, everyone. And have a great weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Berlin Wall wasn\u2019t the only hazardous venue East German prisoners residents used while attempting to … Weekend Open Thread \u2013 \u201cSchwimmer schwimmt in die Freiheit\u201d<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-open-thread"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}