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Georg Herbstritt is a historian and researcher in Berlin, at the archives of the former East German secret service STASI. He is the guest of our website and presents us the situation on the borders of Romania during the communist years, when, apart from the thousands of Romanians who tried to leave Romania illegally, hundreds of East Germans also tried their luck at our borders. They were trying to reach the Federal Republic of Germany via Romania and Yugoslavia.

He speaks here about, as a metaphor, the prolonged Berlin Wall, because the Berlin Wall didn’t end in Berlin. 

Communism prevented people from Eastern Europe to reach the West.

For many, the escape from communist countries was a dream. And they did all they could in order to live in freedom.

Hundreds of East Germans tried their luck at the Romanian border, with the aim of reaching Federal Republic of Germany, via Yugoslavia.

Hundreds were arrested and sent to prison.

Some lost their lives. Some were killed. I know about at least three people from East Germany who died at the border. Who were shot at the Romanian border, tells us Georg Herbstritt.

Many East Germans were arrested. They were sent in the Romanian prisons, sentenced to prison in Romania by a Romanian court, and they were sent to Romanian prisons where they stayed for few months normally.

After escaping from prison, many tried to flee again. And succeeded. The whole story, here. A complete testimony about a little-known reality.