Peter Bieber: I felt a moral obligation; someone had helped me to escape the GDR, so I had to help others
KK:
I would like to begin with your desire to flee East Germany. This was one of the reasons I contacted you, and it is also central to my artistic project. What prompted you to make this decision in the first place?
PB:
I have to start from the beginning. I was born in Königsberg in 1945. In 1948, we had to leave the city because Stalin ordered that all Germans must go. We moved to what later became East Germany, the Soviet-controlled zone. In 1955, my family moved again, this time to a small island called Hiddensee. It is a very small island without cars. I lived there as a child. In 1959, at the age of fourteen, I went to a gymnasium on the larger island of Rügen.
At that time, we were told many things about socialism. We were told that everyone would be equal, that everyone would be happy, that we could travel freely, that we could go to Italy, France, anywhere we wanted, and that we could express our opinions. As a fourteen-year-old, I believed this. I thought socialism was something good. Life on the island felt free. Tourists came for holidays, people swam, children played, and we slept in tents. Everything seemed open and harmless.
KK:
When did this perception begin to change?
PB:
In 1959, our class went on a school trip to Berlin. At that time, I could still cross between East and West Berlin. I even visited my father in Hanover. He had been a prisoner of war in England and chose to stay in West Germany after the war. He did not want to live under Soviet control. In 1961, I visited him again. It was the first time I truly saw life in the West. I was sixteen years old, and I was fascinated. My father told me to come again in the summer and promised to show me more. Then, in August 1961, the Berlin Wall was built.
KK:
How did daily life change for you?
PB:
Suddenly, soldiers appeared everywhere, even on the small island. Military vehicles arrived. Fortifications were built. Swimming was restricted; things that were once normal were suddenly prohibited. I realized that you cannot be happy if you are constantly told what you must do and what you must not do. The promises we were given were lies.
My first direct encounter with the Stasi happened at school in 1961. Someone had written on the wall: “Freedom, not socialism.” The Stasi came, and they made us all write with our right and left hands to identify who had written it. They couldn’t find the person. From that moment on, I understood that what they had told us before was a lie.
KK:
How did this influence your later decisions?
PB:
I began to understand that the system controlled not only movement, but also thought. Later, when I studied literature in Leipzig, I experienced censorship directly. Certain books could only be read in special libraries under surveillance; you could not buy them. Music and literature were controlled. During international trade fairs in Leipzig, restaurants were reserved only for visitors from the West. As a citizen, I was not allowed to enter. I lived there, but I was excluded. This was the moment I knew I did not want to live in this system.
KK:
When did the idea of escape become concrete?
PB:
I understood the injustice very clearly when I saw that elderly people could travel to the West, but younger people could not. Pensioners and invalids were allowed to travel. I was not. I was twenty-three years old, and I asked myself: how long do I have to wait before I can visit my father again? At that moment, I decided, I will not live my life like this, I want my freedom. I will not spend my whole life waiting for permission to be free.
KK:
How did you plan the escape? I assume there must have been very complex decision-making and planning behind it.
PB:
Yes. After 1961, it was extremely dangerous. People were shot at the border. In 1968, during the Prague Spring, I went to Czechoslovakia, to Prague. I visited Café Slavia. On the tables there were Western newspapers like Der Spiegel, Stern, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. In East Germany, this was forbidden. The atmosphere was open and hopeful.
In East Germany, after 1961, you could not speak freely. You never knew who might report you to the Stasi. There was constant mistrust. That was one of the worst aspects of living there. From Prague, I tried to cross into Austria. I went to border checkpoints, but I was sent back. I also tried at the border with West Germany—again, impossible.
I tried to cross into Austria from Prague, but I was turned back. I tried another border, and again I was refused. In 1969, I went to Poland and hoped to escape by sea from Gdańsk. That failed as well. I tried Bulgaria, asking Western tourists for help. They refused because they had seen the border controls. Every time, I had to return home. For two years, I constantly searched for a way out.
KK:
This seems like a very complex process, but it also shows your dedication. How did you finally succeed in escaping?
PB:
In 1970, while hitchhiking from Leipzig, I saw a large truck from West Germany. Hitchhiking was normal for me because I had no money. When I saw that truck, something changed for me. The driver signaled to me, and I ran to him. He hid me inside his truck. He was transporting furniture from East to West Germany.
Later, through a factory owner who decided to help me, I was hidden inside a wardrobe loaded onto a truck. At the border, soldiers inspected the cargo with lamps. When the truck crossed into West Germany, I was free.
KK:
What interested me in your story is the fact that after escaping, you helped others escape as well. What led you to this decision?
PB:
I felt a moral obligation. Someone had helped me, so I had to help others. When I arrived in West Germany, I continued my studies in West Berlin. I studied law, because in East Germany this was only possible if you joined the SED, and I did not want to do that.
Later, students heard my story and asked me if I could help their girlfriends or family members escape. I spoke again with Hannes, the driver. He found another method using a petrol truck. He made a small opening in the tank so that a person could hide inside. In this way, we helped eleven people, one by one. We helped families, mothers, children, and even a baby.
It was very dangerous, but it worked. Sometimes babies were separated from their parents for weeks until the next crossing was possible. Eventually, we were betrayed. A stepson told a friend. The friend told the Stasi.
KK:
I am sorry to hear that. What happened after that?
PB:
I was arrested and imprisoned by the Stasi in East Berlin. I spent eleven months without a name in Hohenschönhausen Prison; I was only a number. The prison cell was small, without windows. Every evening, the guard came and said, “Now you go to bed, and I will tell you how to sleep.” I had to lie on the floor, take the blanket, and lie with both arms crossed over my body. In that position, it was not possible to sleep.
People normally turn while sleeping, onto the left side or the right side, but they knew that, and that was exactly the point. Interrogations lasted for hours. These were methods of psychological torture. Eventually, I was sentenced to ten years in prison.
KK:
Where were you imprisoned?
PB:
After the Stasi prison, I was transferred to Brandenburg Prison. We were forced to work under terrible conditions: day and night shifts, overcrowded cells. Fifteen prisoners in a small room with chemical fumes from factory labor. After five years, the West German government paid money to the East German government for my release. Political prisoners were sold, and I was released for 50,000 Deutsche Marks. Because of this, I was able to leave after five years. Five years is still a long time, but it was better than ten.
KK:
How was life after your release?
PB:
I was very ill for one year. After that, I began studying again. I had forgotten much during imprisonment. I built a new life: I married, and I have two daughters. I later wrote a book about my experiences. I often go to memorial sites, especially in Potsdam, as a contemporary witness. I speak to pupils and students about what happened. This is very important to me.
KK:
Do you regret helping others escape?
PB:
No. Not for a single moment. Morality was more important than fear. The state took my freedom, but I kept my moral responsibility. I would do it again.
Peter Bieber was born in Königsberg, Prussia, in the final days of the war. After his expulsion, Bieber grew up in the GDR, on the Baltic Sea Island of Hiddensee. He studied literature and librarianship but was forbidden from reading the books he wished to access. This led Bieber to decide to escape to the West. As an act of gratitude for the help he had received during his own escape from the GDR, he assisted eleven others in fleeing to freedom. During one such escape in October 1972, he was arrested by the Stasi after an informant betrayed their plans. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and in 1977, the West German government succeeded in securing his release by purchasing his freedom.
(Source:https://www.zeitzeugenbuero.de/zeitzeugensuche/zeitzeuge/bieber-peter/en)