by Jürgen Kopp and Carsten Vick
It was probably the most spectacular escape in German-German history. On July 15, 1975, the Gaeth family fled from Rostock-Warnemünde to Neustadt in Holstein on a sailing boat. In the middle of the Baltic Sea there was a showdown, a military confrontation. East and West German border guards faced each other, heavily armed, face to face on their military ships. The fight for a sailing boat and for a family that wanted to flee the workers' and peasants' state began.
"All left behind for freedom"
Willi Gaeth is nervous, he is sailing outside the 3-mile zone of GDR waters. Not allowed because he's on the run. Get out of the country that, as he later says, restricted and controlled him and even revoked his sailing license. "We left everything behind. And I said:This is the price of freedom."
Also on board are his wife Brigitte and their two sons Klaus and Peter. It's just before 6 p.m. when Willi Gaeth looks through the binoculars and sees a naval ship approaching at high speed. A patrol boat of the Federal Border Police, commanded by Claus Seekamp.
Federal border guards against GDR marines
"We were commissioned to meet the sailing yacht there at a certain point," says Seekamp. His boat went alongside and took the family on board. "Then a few objects became visible on the radar, which were approaching us at high speed." Seekamp and his men identify them as Kondor-type boats of the GDR Navy. "They then tried all sorts of harassment to get us off the yacht again."
Three GDR boats circle the towing association. Armed, the men from East and West Germany stand face to face. But help for Commander Seekamp is already on the way - two ships of the Federal Border Police and a helicopter. When a heavily armed German Navy speedboat announced its arrival, the GDR boats abruptly turned away.
Why was escape noticed so late?
The escape of the Gaeth family is successful, but it remains an escape with many question marks:Why, for example, was a boat from the Federal Border Police ready exactly when Willy Gaeth and his family left the sovereign waters of the GDR in the sailing yacht? And why was the escape noticed so late in broad daylight at the heavily secured border?
Willi Gaeth's son Klaus is now certain:It was a planned, registered escape - and he suspects:His father was an IM, an unofficial employee of the State Security.
For the Stasi, Willi Gaeth is "Hans"
Klaus Gaeth finds what he is looking for in the reading room of the Stasi Records Authority in Rostock:he discovers his father's declaration of commitment. In this, Willi Gaeth undertook to work with the organs of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) on an unofficial basis. The document is signed by hand with "Willi Gaeth" and again with "Hans".
"Hans" is his code name at the Stasi. According to the documents, Willi Gaeth worked for the State Security for five years, until he escaped in the summer of 1975. But what happened afterwards? Did he actually renounce the GDR regime and tried to build a better future for himself in the West? Or was he still in contact with the Stasi - or with a German secret service?
Military conflict would have had far-reaching consequences
Against the background of the significantly relaxed relations between the two German states in 1975 and the CSCE negotiations in Helsinki, the course of the Gaeth family's escape seems plausible, says Volker Höffer, head of the Stasi records authority in Rostock today. Höffer confirms:If there had been a military conflict on the Baltic Sea at the time, there would have been a risk that the desired cooperation between the GDR and the FRG would have broken down again.
Willi Gaeth doesn't want to talk about backgrounds
Willi Gaeth doesn't want to talk about his time as "IM Hans" or about the time after fleeing the GDR, it's too difficult for him. The files in the Federal Archives, which are now being opened little by little, will probably only provide information about this.