Introduction
In 1979/80 my family took part in the biggest espionage scandal that the former country of East-Germany saw in its entire 50 years of existence.

Sometimes the smallest details can have the biggest impact on a persons life. In my case this small detail is a mere 15 minutes. If it had not been for a certain 15 minute period, I would not be here to talk about these adventures. These pages contain my version of our defection story, with links whenever I can find them. (It may help to have the Google translation page handy for some of those links. Many of the pictures and illustrations have captions that are activated by moving your mouse on top of the picture.)

Our story entails incredible stress, lots of intrigue, cloak and dagger missions, hair-raising adventures and sometimes the most amazing coincidences. All of it sums up to the biggest slap in the face of the (former) East-German intellligence service. It caused the East German government to pronounce a death sentence in-absentia on most of our little group. In order to bring this death sentence into reality East Germany's government took the extraordinary step of offering a DM 1,000,000 bounty (roughly $600,000 in 1979 dollars) for the succesful execution of the members of our group.

If the whole thing sounds to you like something you might have read in a book, or even seen in a movie - you are right. German television has produced a "made for TV" movie as well as a multipart "20/20" style documentary show. In addition, over the years there were several books published about this entire affair.

So without further delay, lets get into the action: The Story

Nichts auf dieser Welt kann die Beharrlichkeit ersetzen.
Talent kann es nicht - nichts ist verbreiteter als erfolglose Maenner mit Talent.
Genie kann es nicht - unbelohntes Genie ist nahezu ein Sprichwort.
Ausbildung kann es nicht - Die Welt ist voll von ausgebildeten Obdachlosen.

Beharrlichkeit und Ausdauer alleine sind allmaechtig.

-Calvin Coolidge