April 8, 1989 should bring him freedom. In the morning, Bert Greiser, 27, grabbed sneakers and his most comfortable clothes: a pair of sweatpants and a beige pullover. He wanted to be mobile, after all he had to sprint, skip barriers, climb to need and escape GDR border guards.

A steeplechase from the GDR directly into a new life in the FRG. When it went well. Or just a run that ended in jail or even death.

"I had adrenaline right under my skull," recalls Bert Greiser, muscular upper arms, dark hair, undercut hairstyle, 30 years later. With his friend Michael Baumann, he went one last time to the sports field on which they had sprints trained for months for the planned border breakthrough in the Berlin Chausseestraße.

"We wanted to relax again, had to come down." Greiser, now 57 years and three times grandfather, is sitting in a café at the former border crossing. He's almost talking in staccato now, as if it's still about seconds. At that time he and "the Micha", as he calls the friend, ran a few laps. Warm up for the Republic Escape.

Basically, her plan was simple, brute, "not highly intelligent," said Greiser. No self-made hot air balloon, no rope shot with an arrow across the border. The two just wanted to run through the border crossing, in the lee of the cars that were let through by pass: "We put everything on the surprise effect." It was only 150 meters.

The perfect time

At 9.30 am the young men drove from the sports field to the border crossing. It was full, many wanted to go to the West this Saturday, they had hoped that. Greiser whispered to his friend: If the turnpike passes the next car, "then go". First Micha, then he. "I'm faster, I'll catch up with you."

The next few seconds wrote history. Because the escape date was unknowingly perfectly chosen: The GDR had the shooting order, whose existence denied high SED squad later in court, repealed. The regime was already under pressure too much. The GDR wanted to avoid another Mauertoten in this crisis, after the young Chris Gueffroy had died in February 1989 in the ball hail on the Berlin Wall.

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Greiser in the Chauseestraße, 2019

Therefore, on April 3, 1989, the command of the border troops ordered all subordinate units "not to use the firearm (...) to prevent breakthroughs". From now on, bullets should only be allowed "at the threat of one's own life". Until April 4, 1989, this was also communicated to all border guards, according to internal documents, this message reached by 22 clock and the duty officer in the Chausseestraße.

Four days before Greiser's and Baumann's escape, it was therefore no longer possible to shoot, even according to GDR standards. The two could not have guessed that. They had sworn to each other: "If a shot falls, we stop immediately, we wanted freedom, not death."

"The GDR makes dense!"

But even Greiser had made sure that his escape should write history: He told a friend in West Berlin his plan. "I wanted to film our escape." Why? "That was a moving moment and to sell it to Coca-Cola." Greiser laughs. A joke, maybe with a spark of truth. Maybe that would even have worked out: a commercial about a race in the capitalist paradise. Freedom, sponsored by Coke.

This freedom had always been important to Bert Greiser. At first he had arranged with the GDR. He made good food in the restaurant, had a girlfriend and a daughter, but still felt a nagging malaise. Would he be able to realize his dream of a house on the lake here? World travel was never important to him, "but I wanted to decide my own life".

From 1988 he was constantly thinking about fleeing. Many acquaintances were already gone, the circle of friends shrank. Greiser did not want to be the last to dine in the GDR. "There were only two possibilities: Either the GDR collapses soon or it makes you really close." And that's exactly what he assumed. So he started running, inaugurating his friend. The young men hoped that their children and friends, who had agreed to the project, could catch up by family reunification. "That was Plan A." Plan B envisaged that they were ransomed as political prisoners.

An escape movie, if something went wrong, could not hurt to build up pressure. The friend from West Berlin did not come with video camera, but brought three companions and a good camera with. They placed themselves at 9.30 clock on a West pedestal, where Berlin tourists like gazten towards the border, as if the GDR was a human zoo. The four stood, if you like, in the finish line.

"Complete tunnel view"

"About this point we started," says Bert Greiser 30 years later on the noisy, busy Chausseestraße. He is looking for clues. Almost all buildings of that time have been demolished, here is now the massive new BND headquarters. Greiser points to a yellow house; From the top floor he had watched the border crossing several times before fleeing. And there, at the height of the billboard, there was the post with the four West Berliners. Somewhat earlier, cobblestones and a plaque commemorate the border.

When he ran away, he had "only one goal, complete tunnel vision." Past the cars. Later, past Micha. About barriers that were 1.30 meters higher than the hurdles he knew from athletics competitions. How fast was he at his best? "Faster than most, I had an armful of medals."

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During the escape attempt: Greiser and Bachmann, April 8, 1989

The Stasi reconstructed this run as minutely as if it were a slow motion. It is a document justifying its failure: a border worker did not intervene because he was just finishing a car. It took seven seconds to trigger the alarm. Two customs officers were employed in the control house, so that "the perpetrators" were able to "continue to advance unhindered in the car lane between the cars continuously." A passport inspector was peddling pedestrians, "took up the immediate pursuit", but came too late because of a fence between pedestrian and motor vehicle area.

Meanwhile, the four West Berliners shouted on the podium at the finish line according to the Stasi Protocol: "Run, run!"

Stasi shooter disturbed while smoking

Greiser did not hear that, just the sound of the alarm. And then: a shot. Greiser stopped immediately, behind the turnpike he had skipped, seven meters from the finish. "I was not even breathless." Micha was 20 meters behind him. Handcuffs clicked, "we were handled like felons".

On the podium emerged from the flight almost iconic images. They show an elderly man with thin hair and cigarette in his mouth, as he aims with the pistol. He had hurried out of his control box in such a hurry that he had lost his service cap. The photo, a disgrace for the GDR, went through the West Berlin press. There, the officer was henceforth called only the "Kippe-Sagittarius".

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The shooter: Stasi captain Karl-Heinz B.

Why did this shot fall despite the end of the shooting order?

Because the shooter was an employee of the passport control unit. The PKE was subordinate to the Department VI of the Stasi. For camouflage their employees wore uniforms of the border troops, without belonging. Unlike the border troops, they were evidently not informed of the end of the shooting order. In this sense, the two refugees had the great misfortune of being victims of a communication breakdown.

Greiser believes that he was very lucky. The shot narrowly missed him, so it suggests a reconstruction of the line of fire in a later court case. In the Stasi report, however, it was stated that the shooter had only given a warning shot "about 2 meters" about the fugitive, "because there was no other way to prevent the border breakthrough". A "targeted shot" did not take place.

At the fall of the wall in jail

This is annoying Greiser today: "That was no warning shot!" One only has to look at the photo, the attitude of the pistol, the aiming. In the 1993 trial, however, the "Kippe-Schützen", Stasi captain Karl-Heinz B., could not be proved. "He left the court with a grin," says Greiser.

For his escape attempt Greiser was sentenced in 1989 to 22 months imprisonment, his friend Micha got two months less. He missed the fall of the Berlin Wall - at the Juvenile Prison Halle. "A guard came to me and said, 'I've been over there - and you?'"

The time after 9th November seemed like forever. Why did not the political prisoners get free? He was finally released on November 13, 1989.

It took him a few days to process everything, "even if you do not like to admit that as a guy". Then he passed the border post on Chausseestraße. This time quite legal, "but at least as excited".

In East Berlin the streets were empty. Life was pulsing in the west. "Whoa, those are the lights," recalls Greiser. Meanwhile, he has also fulfilled his dream from the GDR era: Today Bert Greiser lives south of Berlin in a house on the lake.