- True tale about two men planning to escape from communist East Germany in a hot air balloon, but only if they can take their families with them.
- In 1978, in East Germany, two families, the Strelzyks and the Wetzels, make plans to escape the Communist East and flee to the West. Peter Strelzyk comes up with a daring idea to construct a homemade air balloon big enough to carry the two families across the East-West militarized border. The border between East and West Germany is heavily militarized, complete with watch towers, guard dogs, barbed-wire, alarms, sensors, search lights, and patrols. Rumors have it that some areas of the militarized border are mined. The only chance of crossing the border is by air. The Strelzyks and the Wetzels commence their risky venture by purchasing lots of taffeta fabric and sewing it together with a sewing machine in the attic. Peter Strelzyk builds an experimental homemade hot air balloon burner. In 1979 when the balloon is ready Peter and his son test it, but the Wetzel family becomes hesitant. The Strelzyks decide to go alone, but bad weather causes the balloon to crash inside the Communist zone. The Strelzyks leave the crash area, but the incriminating evidence litters the ground. They wonder if they will be able to evade the ensuing Police investigation and whether they will be able to build another balloon for their next attempt. They also are determined to persuade the Wetzel family to maybe join them in their second try. That is, if the East German Communist secret Police, the Stasi, won't get to them first.—nufs68
- In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet-backed communist government of East Germany constructed the Inner German border fortifications, using walls, fences, moats, barbed wire, booby traps, land mines, vicious dogs, and trigger-happy soldiers to prevent their oppressed citizens from fleeing to West Germany, capitalist and aligned with the Americans.
In 1978, friends Peter Strelzyk, Gunter Wetzel, and Joseph Keller meet at their local bar in Poessneck, East Germany. While discussing an upcoming picnic with their families, they also talk among themselves how unhappy they are in East Germany. Agents of the government watch the people constantly, subject them to endless propaganda, and might act against them at any time for any reason. In the paranoid atmosphere, the men do not feel safe nor in control of their own destinies. They talk quietly, lest they be overheard by the feared and hated secret police (known by its German acronym, Stasi.)
One night, Lucas Keller, eldest son of Joseph, takes his girlfriend Karen back to her home. She lives just a couple of miles from the border, where movement is even more tightly controlled. Guards have checkpoints at roads near the border, where Karen must show proof of residency, Lucas must sign in and out and he is expected to leave the area by 10 p.m. However, Lucas has other ideas. Despite dutifully reciting the propaganda that his teachers expect of him, he also desires to escape to freedom in West Germany. After dark, he steals a bulldozer and uses it to charge the border fence. The bulldozer knocks over a guard tower but fails to penetrate the fence. Lucas avoids the guards and tries to climb the fence, where he hits a booby trap and is shot by an automatic gun rigged by the East Germans for exactly this reason. The guards find him and leave him to die at the base of the fence. The next day, the Stasi shows up at the picnic, and the entire Keller family is arrested.
Peter is more motivated than ever to leave East Germany, and his wife Doris starts to warm to the idea when he reminds her that they were lucky not to be arrested too, even though they knew nothing of Lucas's plan, and their own sons might be next - the elder, Frank, was a classmate of Lucas. Gunter's wife Petra is upset but not yet ready to leave; she still thinks of Poessneck as home. Peter mulls how to cross the formidable Inner German border and comes up with the idea of flying over it in a hot air balloon. Gunter helps him work out the details and agrees to help make the balloon, although he does not yet plan to escape himself. Buying large quantities of cloth might arouse suspicion that they are up to something, so they are careful to go out of town to buy the 1,250 square yards of fabric with a cover story about using it to make tents for a camping club.
Peter begins making the balloon using a foot-powered sewing machine, while Gunter starts work on a basket and a propane burner. Later, they borrow an electric motor to power the sewing machine, but the work takes time, and the men have to hide from their nosy neighbors and they feel alarmed every time the doorbell buzzes. They know that they would be in deep trouble if the Stasi found their project, even if they did not know what it was for. East Germans merely suspected of political crimes could not expect to receive due process or presumption of innocence.
After many weeks of work, Peter and Gunter have a balloon ready to test, and take it to a clearing in the woods near Poessneck, but they are unable to inflate it. On the second test, using a large industrial fan, they still can only partially inflate the balloon. Their burner is not powerful enough. They need more propane, and their growing stash of contraband equipment gets harder to hide. Meanwhile, Joseph Keller is released, a broken man after several months of abuse at the hands of the Stasi. He suggests to Peter that for both of their continued safety, they should not associate with each other any longer, and Joseph will not return to his former job.
Petra, fearing for her safety and that of of her children, convinces Gunter to abandon the project. Peter understands and suggests they hang out less often, to make it less likely that Gunter could be implicated as an accomplice. Peter gets his son Frank to help improve the balloon instead. After several more months of refinements to the burner, the Strelzyks finally have an airworthy balloon by July 1979, over a year after they started the project.
On the night of July 3, Peter, Doris, and their two sons leave their house for what they think is the last time, and drive to the clearing to ride their balloon. At first, the balloon performs admirably, and they drift toward the border. The border guards spot the balloon's burner in the dark sky, but are unable to identify it. Unfortunately, the balloon drifts into a cloud. The water vapor condenses onto the balloon, increasing its weight and extinguishing the burner. It lands in a forest, and the Strelzyks are not sure where they are. They exit the basket, and the balloon, still buoyant enough to float unloaded, blows away. Peter goes to look around, and discovers to his horror that they are still in East Germany, less than a quarter of a mile from the border. The guards could be anywhere, and the woods are full of trip wires and possibly other hazards. Peter decides to wait for daylight and then try to walk back.
The empty balloon lands next to the border fence, and the guards find it in the morning. The Strelzyks can hear the alarm behind them as they reach the town of Lobenstein. While the border guards alert the Stasi to their findings, the Strelzyks walk through town, hoping not to be noticed or draw attention to themselves. After walking for hours, they reach the clearing safely, and are much relieved that their car and equipment have not been found and are undisturbed. They pack up everything and return home apprehensively, but there are no policemen waiting for them. To cover themselves, Peter takes his exhausted younger son to the clinic, claiming illness. Peter is distraught, knowing that he failed his family, and while he hasn't been caught yet, he knows the Stasi are on the case and could catch up to him at any time. His sons rally his courage and convince him to build another balloon and try again.
Peter replaces his car, in case anyone reported his old one, and reconnects with his friend Gunter. Time is short, and he needs Gunter's help, beginning with a trailer hitch for the new car. Meanwhile, the Stasi agents estimate the balloon's flight path and close in on Poessneck as its origin. Gunter is even more unhappy with his East German life, and Petra wishes to visit her ailing mother in West Berlin and is tired of jumping at shadows. Both of them know that if and when the Stasi catches Peter, they will probably be in trouble themselves. With this in mind, Gunter tells Peter that he, Petra, and their two children will join them on their next attempt. They get to work building a new balloon big enough for eight people.
Peter and Gunter correctly surmise that the Stasi has instructed all stores to report anyone trying to buy any substantial quantity of fabric, so they travel from town to town, buying small amounts of fabric to allay the suspicions of the store clerks, this time using the cover story that the fabric is for a Young Pioneers project (roughly the East German equivalent of the Boy Scouts.) At least one store clerk reports them anyway. Working long hours feverishly, the group completes the second balloon by September 15 and stays one step ahead of the police while doing so. The Stasi's frustrated commanding officer orders a new search of the area where the first balloon landed, and the guards find something they missed the first time, a bottle of medicine that Doris dropped. The Stasi cannot immediately identify the owner, so they go to the Poessneck pharmacy to investigate further.
The pharmacist identifies the medication, but to search his files for a list of people who take it would be time consuming. The Stasi officers demand he do the search anyway, right now. As the pharmacist names people who take the medication, the Stasi checks them out and is able to clear most of them. Meanwhile, Peter checks the weather and wind conditions and find them favorable for a flight. Finally, the pharmacist pulls Doris's card, and the police go to check on them. It's now or never for the flight.
The Strelzyks and all four children get into Peter's car, and Gunter and Petra on their motorcycle, and they leave their homes just minutes before the Stasi arrive to look for them. The Stasi search the houses and find all the evidence left behind. Peter's nosy neighbor, who turns out to be a Stasi informant, describes the new car to the policemen. Other police are radioed to watch for the car, and the border guards are placed on highest alert. Poessneck is suddenly filled with police, and Peter is lucky to escape their notice. Gunter catches up with Peter near the clearing, and they hurriedly inflate the balloon.
They have an accident taking off, and the balloon catches fire. Luckily, Gunter had the foresight to bring a fire extinguisher. As the balloon rises, the fabric splits near the top, causing the hot air to start leaking out. Peter must turn up the flame to make up for it, and to stay out of reach of the border guards' searchlights, consuming their limited supply of propane faster. The border guards spot the burner in the dark sky again, and the Stasi officers chase it in a helicopter. They lose sight of the balloon when the burner runs out of propane and goes out. The balloon begins to lose altitude, and the border guards converge on where they expect it to land.
After passing perilously close to some high voltage power lines, the balloon lands in a clearing in the woods. The group climbs out but is unsure of where they landed, and Peter and Gunter go ahead to explore. They see a police car of a make unknown in East Germany, and the policemen inform them that they are indeed in West Germany. Overjoyed, the men embrace each other and the policemen, and signal to their families to join them. They celebrate their successful flight to freedom.
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