Conversations with Eyewitnesses – Burkhart Veigel

Please note that this talk takes place in German!

One of the most successful escape facilitators, Burkhart Veigel, will give a talk followed by a discussion about his activities at the Berlin Wall, during which – according to his latest figures and findings – he helped around 950 refugees to freedom between 1961 and 1970. Three of his operations were never caught in the act by the State Security (Stasi): the legendary ‘Doppelgänger’ operation, in which a smuggler used a ruse to pass through border control twice, thereby obtaining a registered identity document for a refugee – in this way, at least 100 people made it to the West; the escapes by Cadillac, in which a refugee was smuggled across the border hidden in the dashboard – around 200 refugees in three years; and the ‘Frenchman’s Tour’, in which a French Allied soldier was able to take up to 14 refugees across the border in a single trip – in this way, more than 250 refugees made it from the GDR to the FRG in four years.

In 2007, after 37 years as a practising orthopaedic surgeon and trauma surgeon in Stuttgart, Burkhart Veigel returned to Berlin to research and write about the subject of escape and escape assistance. This resulted, amongst other things, in the books ‘Wege durch die Mauer – Fluchthilfe und Stasi zwischen Ost und West’ and ‘FREI’, a novel about an East-West love story, which he co-wrote with his former wife, the author Roswitha Quadflieg.

At the end of the event, there will be time for book sales and a book-signing session.

Duration: approx. 1.5 hours

Price: 7 euros

Tickets are available up to 30 days in advance.

Location:
Berliner Unterwelten e.V.
Brunnenstraße 142, 10115 Berlin

Not accessible to wheelchair users.