How Two Families Fled Communist Oppression In East Germany In A Homemade Hot Air Balloon

id="article-body" class="row" section="article-body"> Günter Wetzel and Peter Strelzyk built a hot air balloon from scratch to escape from East Germany with their families in 1979.  Courtesy of Günter Wetzel It was a crisp Saturday in September 1979, and a breeze was blowing strong and steady from the north. That's what would help Günter Wetzel and his colleague Peter Strelzyk escape East Germany with their families in the middle of the night -- thanks to a hot air balloon they'd built from scratch using only a magazine article as a guide.

"The thought of leaving had been festering in my mind for years, but it was clear that it was very, very dangerous to go via a land route," said Wetzel, now 65 years old. "When I saw pictures of these balloons, I knew it was a possibility." Wetzel talked to CNET through a German interpreter shortly after the 40th anniversary of his flight and ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. The flight was one of the most daring and ingenious escapes ever made from East Germany.

There was no certainty of success, Mod APK ([value%22%0D%0A%0D%0ABulgaria%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22changed%22%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22form_build_id%22%0D%0A%0D%0Aform-4a8bc1055e3f0a7f5b2a0039a4ffa233%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22form_id%22%0D%0A%0D%0Alivredor_node_form%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22field_ville[0][value]%22%0D%0A%0D%0ADothan%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22field_email[0][email]%22%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085%0D%0AContent-Disposition:%20form-data;%20name=%22op%22%0D%0A%0D%0AEnregistrer%0D%0A---------------------------71668515990491085-- www.gotanproject.net]) and failure would have meant imprisonment or even death. For Wetzel and mobile apps many others, the desire for XAPK freedom outweighed the risks. "If we hadn't been so optimistic, we probably couldn't have done it," he said.  Wetzel and Strelzyk have told different accounts of their escape, with each man claiming credit for the idea. They stopped talking shortly after arriving in the West and never reconciled before Strelzyk's death in March 2017.

What follows is Wetzel's account of their flight to West Germany.  A divided Germany After World War II, Germany was divided between East and West. The West, with the help of the US and XAPK Britain, flourished and modernized. The East, under the influence of the Soviet Union, mobile apps struggled. About 3.6 million East Germans, 20% of the population, fled between 1945 and APKX 1961.    East Germany, APK known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), didn't want the rest of its citizens to leave for Mobile Games the richer West, so in August 1961 it built barriers to keep its people in.

The official GDR line: It wanted to keep "decadent, immoral westerners out.