This Way Out

East Germans show uncommon imagination in escaping Walter Ulbricht's Communist prison state.* A circus troupe, animals, merry-go-round and all, once drove across to the West as if it were en route to a carnival. One man reinforced the family car with armor plate, then crashed through the Wall with wife and friends as the Communist Volkspolizei fired vainly at them. An East German locomotive engineer opened the throttle and took his whole train to West Berlin. But until last week, no one had found a way of reaching freedom under the very feet of the Vopos.

Digging by Day. It began in Glienicke, a village among the open fields on the northern fringe of Berlin, just inside Communist territory. There, a small group determined to flee to the West, despite the Wall, which in their area consists of a double barbed-wire fence patrolled by tommy-gun-toting guards. Escape seemed impossible until one of the villagers had an idea: Why not go underground? A stucco house stood empty only 20 ft. from the wire. Soon shovels were biting through the cellar wall and into the sandy soil. The digging was not difficult, but only one man at a time could work at the head of the narrow tunnel; employing the classic technique of captured British soldiers who bored out of German prison camps in World War II, the others helped hand back the loose dirt, or buttressed the excavation with wooden supports. The tunnelers dug only in the daytime, so that traffic noises would drown out the sounds of the shovels.

At last, after two weeks, the tunnel had reached a clump of bushes 90 ft. away in West Berlin's French sector. In ones and twos, the families who were in on the plan slipped into the house and gathered in the tiny cellar. There were 28 people, including three children and one half-paralyzed woman of 71. Each was allowed to carry one parcel; a pet dog had to be left behind for fear it would bark and give the plan away. When everything was ready, one man crawled through to see if the coast was clear. At his signal, the others followed; one by one, they crawled over to freedom.

Angry Aftermath. The Communists were unaware of the escape until they read about it in the press reports. Even then they did not know the full story, for West Berlin authorities had intentionally misled reporters about the method used in the escape. According to one official version, the refugees had cut through the barbed wire above ground. His curiosity aroused by conflicting reports, a United Press International reporter, Rolf Steinberg, soon had the straight story from the refugees themselves, and his editors put it on the wire. The Berlin city government and the local press angrily denounced "this tragic indiscretion,'' which, they argued, made it impossible for others to use the tunnel. But the U.P.I, pointed out that Communist Vopos swarmed in and occupied the stucco house three hours before their story of "the tunnel was distributed.

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It was getting so that Red Boss Ulbricht could not trust anyone, not even the "deserving workers" and "reliable" intellectuals who are given special benefits, such as vacation trips abroad. When 354 of these well-treated East Germans arrived in Casablanca on the East German cruise ship Fritz Heckert, 23 of the honored passengers and a ship's officer defected by wandering off into the city's winding alleyways. The captain flashed word of the escapes to his headquarters in Rostock, got back cabled orders: INTENSIFY IDEOLOGICAL WORK ON BOARD. But stepped-up propaganda lectures were no solution; when the Fritz Heckert anchored in Tunis a few days later, two more passengers and the ship's doctor jumped ship.

* An added reason for flight: Ulbricht last week announced a new draft law making all men from 18 to 26 liable to 18 months' military service.

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