The Race Against the Stasi
Page 12
NEUES DEUTSCHLAND
ORGAN DES ZENTRALKOMITEES DER SOZIALISTISCHEN EINHEITSPARTEI DEUTSCHLANDS
The Karl-Marx-Stadt rider, Dieter Wiedemann, delivered the GDR’s first win on the fourth stage of the Tour of Bulgaria. He rode the 28.5-kilometre time trial between Stara Zagora and Nova Zagora in 44.32, beating the second-placed Polish rider, Palka (45:12) […]
Reprinted from ‘Stage winner Wiedemann’, 24 September 1963
SYLVIA
Dieter went to see my uncle. He told him to reapply, and to request a ten-day permit. The extra days would give my mum a chance to meet his family, and I would be able to spend more time with him. In the event we didn’t need the ten days. Dieter was summoned to a training camp, so we had three days less than we’d thought.
My mum was probably hoping that I’d realise that it wasn’t such a great idea. Dieter and I might not like each other after all, or I’d see how poor the GDR was and come to my senses.
SYLVIA
Dieter came to meet us on the train, and I knew immediately that it was real. The letters hadn’t been an illusion, and that was the most important thing.
He asked my mum if he could take me dancing the following evening, and she said it would be OK as long as he had me back by midnight.
DIETER
I remember the day she came as if it were yesterday. I was excited, but also scared. Aside from my cycling she was the only thing that mattered to me, and so all of a sudden I had everything to lose. It had been three years since I’d seen her, and three years is a very long time. We’d both grown, and I was worried that we might not like each other after all.
I set out for the train station and I was full of doubts. I was thinking, ‘Is this really happening? Is she really going to come? What if it’s all been a waste of time? What if there’s no chemistry between us after all?’
Then immediately she stepped off the train I knew. She was even more beautiful than I’d imagined.
SYLVIA
The following day I had to go to the police station with my mum. We had to sign to confirm that we’d arrived, and to fill in the forms. We had to tell them which train we’d be taking home; things like that. I thought it was all a bit strange, but those were the rules, you know?
That evening I went dancing with Dieter, and I had my first ever glass of champagne. Then we took the train back to Flöha. He walked me back to my aunt’s, and that’s where he kissed me for the first time.
DIETER
We took the train to Chemnitz on the third day, and went dancing at a hotel. I was careful about what I said, and I avoided talking about the differences between east and west. I was quite well known, and you didn’t know who might be listening.
We had a wonderful night together, and I was sure to get her home before midnight. When I went to bed my head was spinning, but I knew that I really was in love with her.
I had to make my mind up quickly. She’d be going back in a few days, so it was now or never. If I didn’t do something I might not ever see her again.
SYLVIA
The next evening there was the party for the wedding anniversary at Dieter’s house. There weren’t many people there, just family and very close friends. I met all of his family and they seemed like nice people. I knew that I was different to them, but I didn’t feel ill at ease. They were very kind, and I was comfortable being around new people anyway. It was fun.
I was watching my mum, and I could tell that she liked Dieter. He was courteous and quiet, and she liked the fact that he didn’t speak for the sake of it. He didn’t smoke or drink, he did sports and he seemed trustworthy.
SYLVIA
The day after the party we went for a walk in the forest. I told him I wanted to come to live with him, but that we’d have to wait until I was twenty-one. He said it was hopeless, and that it would never work. I’d been used to a much higher standard of living in the west, and so the adjustment would be impossible for me. I told him I didn’t care about material things, and that my grandfather would make my clothes and then send them. I was very young and naïve, you know? Just a girl.
I was used to saying what I wanted, and to whom I wanted. Dieter said you couldn’t do that in the GDR, and that you couldn’t trust people the way I was used to. I listened to everything he said and told him I understood, but I didn’t really. I was falling in love with him, and I would have done anything to be with him.
Then he told me about Giessen.
DIETER
So we went walking and I couldn’t wait any more – I told her that I wanted to be with her. She said she did, too, but that we’d have to wait another couple of years before she could come. I knew we couldn’t, and I knew that it would be impossible for her to come east. Then I told her about the qualification races for the Tokyo Olympics.
DIETER
The GDR and FRG used to compete together as a united German team. The way it worked was that each of the sports had to arrange qualifying events, and they had to be fair and equal. In practical terms that meant that there were two qualifiers, one either side of the border.
In cycling the races were scheduled for Giessen in the west, and then Erfurt in the east. The way it worked was that you got points according to your position in each race, and the five riders with the highest aggregate went to the Olympics. The races would be in July, so I told her that if we were careful and I stayed healthy I would be racing in the west, at Giessen. That would be our chance, and if she was sure I’d try to defect while I was there.
I explained that it was important she didn’t mention it to anybody for now, though, not even her parents. If everything went according to plan she would be able to tell them later, but for now she mustn’t say a word to anybody.
Then I explained that her visiting could have consequences for me. I told her about the Stasi, and that if anybody asked she’d to explain that we were only friends. She was to say that she hadn’t even thought about us living together, and that I seemed happy with my life in the GDR. If they pressed her she was to tell them that she wasn’t allowed to leave home until she was twenty-one, and that she understood there was no way I would be able to move to the west.
SYLVIA
The days flew by. He showed me around Chemnitz, we walked along the river, sat and read together at his house.
As the time passed I became more worried. Previously we’d been writing, dreaming really. Now it was different because he was real, and I was falling in love with him. He was slipping away from me hour by hour and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to be able to cope with this. It’s going to be much worse than before.’
DIETER
On the day she left we took the train from Flöha to Chemnitz. We said our goodbyes and got off, and Sylvia and her mum stepped on to the train headed to Hof, across the border.
I didn’t go any further because it was the border train and it was full of Stasi. I didn’t want to give them any sort of pretext for stopping her, so we said our goodbyes. I got off the train, she got on another one and the Stasi got on with her.
How did I know they were Stasi? Everyone knew they were Stasi! The train was going across the border, and normal people couldn’t cross the border. Then you could tell the difference between people from the west and the east, so it wasn’t rocket science. The haircuts, the clothes, the way they pretended to do ‘normal’ things. Just think of every Stasi cliché you’ve ever heard about. Black leather jacket, drinking a beer alone, pretending to read the paper.
SYLVIA
There were no kisses or anything like that because it was too dangerous. Dieter just said goodbye, and I boarded the train home with my mother.
When we got to Gutenfürst, the last station before the border, they pulled me and my mum aside and we were separated. Then they led me into an office and started checking my bags. I told them that if they didn’t hurry up I wouldn’t have time to get back on the train, and then I’d have to wait for the next one. They said, ‘Well
, then you’ll have to wait for the next train …’
So they were going through the bags, and then they started interrogating me. They asked me what I’d been doing in the GDR, why I had friends in the east when I was from the west, all those things. They wanted to know about my relationship with Dieter and I told them that we were just friends. I said the main reason for my visit had been my family. They kept pressing me, but Dieter had told me what to say. I told them that I liked him, but that my mother and father wouldn’t allow me to come to live with him until I was twenty-one. I said that Dieter had a good job as a cyclist and that he wasn’t interested in leaving the GDR.
In the end we were there eleven hours, until midnight. It was horrible, and they treated me like I was some kind of a criminal. They treated me like dirt, but I had to sit there and take it from them. I’d understood that there were differences between east and west, but I hadn’t realised that the people there were like that. I remember thinking, ‘I love him but there’s no way in the world I will ever come back to this awful country!’
Thinking about it now, maybe that was the reason they treated me like that. Maybe they didn’t want me to go back there either.
DIETER
After Sylvia had gone home I went to the final training camp in Berlin, and then the assistant trainer of the club came to see me. His nickname was ‘The Red Baron’,48 and he’d ridden for Dynamo, the Stasi club. Everyone knew he was one of them.
Wismut and Motor were being consolidated into a single sport club, SC Karl-Marx-Stadt. That meant that Helmut Wechsler, the guy who had replaced Werner Richter, was also coming across to our club. I didn’t much fancy that, and then the Baron told me that I needed to think about moving into the club dormitory. I said I didn’t want to because I was happy at home. I explained that I enjoyed riding the extra few kilometres to and from the club, and that it was pointless for me to change. I could tell he was losing patience, though, and in the end he said, ‘Look, it’s pretty simple really – if you don’t move into the club by 1 November your career will be finished!’
There were about eight or nine other cyclists living at the club, but they were the guys who came from a long way away. It was too far for them to travel each day, so it was the only way for them to train. Then you had Weissleder who came from Weimar, 130 kilometres away, but he lived in a flat in town with his coach. The thing was that I lived ten kilometres away, so in a sporting sense there was no value in my moving into the club dormitory. They’d always quite liked the fact that I did a few extra kilometres each day, but apparently they didn’t any more. They were making an exception of me, and I think it was their way of letting me know that they were on to me.
The Stasi had files on everybody, and when they told me to move in I assumed they’d got wind of what was going on. I assumed – and I still assume – that the mayor’s request for Sylvia to come had set alarm bells ringing.
I therefore had no choice, but I figured that it would only be for two months. I’d be away all of January at winter training camp, then a week of physical testing at DHfK. Then we’d be into serious training, and pretty soon we’d be racing. I’d be able to spend weekends at home before the season started, and anyway it wasn’t like he was giving me an option.
I told him that I’d move in, but only on the proviso that they gave me a single room. I told him I snored, but he knew that what I really wanted was to be left alone. He could have challenged me, but it wouldn’t have made much sense for him. I was an important rider for the club and it wouldn’t have been good for his own career had he lost me. So it was a sort of trade, as everything was in the GDR. It was the best I could hope for in the circumstances, and he got what he wanted. I went to the town hall to register a change of residence, and moved in on 1 November 1963.
DIETER
So I knew that 1964 would be the critical year. I was pretty sure that they knew all about Sylvia, and that they would be watching my every move.
I knew that if I was successful on the bike I could spin the whole thing out a little longer, but time was running out for me and for them. If I rode badly or got injured I wouldn’t be on the bus to Giessen, and that would be the end of it.
The whole thing was closing in on me, and I’d used my joker now. I had to keep my head down, and above all to stay fit so that I’d be selected for the Olympic qualifier. There would be more pressure to join the party, but if I knew that if I could just get to Giessen I would at least have a chance.
I was playing a game with them, and I suppose you could say it was the endgame.
SYLVIA
I told my mum and dad about him coming in the spring, and they said they were fine with it as long as I was sure.
My mum had met his family, and she had told my dad that they were nice, simple people. She liked the fact that they kept rabbits and that Dieter’s dad tended his smallholding. That they weren’t like those crazy GDR people you read about, with guns hidden behind the wardrobe!
We never discussed politics, or the implications of having him come to stay. To be honest I don’t even think it crossed their minds, and if it did they never mentioned it to me. As far as my dad was concerned it was just something I dearly wanted, and he thought it would be nice to have a son-in-law.
DIETER
I was one of the candidates for the Peace Race, and I was going well.
A few weeks before the race there was a terrible tragedy. One of the team from the previous year, Manfred Brüning, was hit by a truck in Berlin and killed. Manfred and I were about the same age, and he was a really nice person.
DIETER
When they chose the team they always picked a reserve as well, in case someone fell ill or got injured beforehand. This time it was me, Lothar Appler from Dynamo and the usual DHfK cadre. You had Schur, Eckstein, Ampler and a new lad named Dieter Mickein. The reserve was Günter Hoffmann, from ASK Vorwärts.
You couldn’t argue with them selecting Ampler, and Mickein was the new star. Täve was thirty-three, but he said he wanted to do one more Peace Race and they needed a road captain. Then when you had Täve you always had Eckstein as well, but it made no sense because Hoffmann had the best form of anyone in the GDR. Anyway, two days before the race there was a meeting and they put him in instead of Eckstein. The trainer, coach, mechanic and masseur were all DHfK.
NEUES DEUTSCHLAND
ORGAN DES ZENTRALKOMITEES DER SOZIALISTISCHEN EINHEITSPARTEI DEUTSCHLANDS
Today sees the start of the seventeenth International Peace Race. It begins with a ninety-four-kilometre criterium, a ‘Tour of Warsaw’. Riders from Belgium, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, USSR, Finland, the GDR, England, France, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and, for the first time, an international team, will take to the road to fight for peace. After the first four stages on Polish territory, the riders will reach the GDR on Thursday 14 May, with the finish in Berlin. They will leave our republic on Wednesday 20 May, from Aue, before the winner is honoured in Prague on 24 May.
The Peace Race has lent her character to an era. When, sixteen years ago, the first edition ran between the rivers Vltava and Vistula, amateur stage racing was almost unknown throughout the world. Conscientiously, through adversity and against all odds, the number of participating countries increased. Now bright-eyed guests from dozens of countries celebrate May Day.
The athletic idea bore handsome fruit: there are now stage races of prestige and tradition in all socialist countries. England announced its tour, the United Arab Republic directed a stage race in the Nile Delta. Socialist Cuba, Tunisia and Morocco were the final links in the chain of countries providing amateur riders with a new sporting highlight, a Peace Race replica. Even the conservative Tour de France felt compelled to introduce a special amateur race.
Through this example the Peace Race has provided crucial impulse to cycling the world over. And of that the organisers may be justly proud. […]
Cleverly, the popularity of the race was used to encourage hundred
s of thousands to participate in miniature peace races each year. Not only does this help to identify new talent, but first and foremost fulfils the demand within our society to develop well-rounded people who appreciate the joy of movement and competition, and the moral and physical values of sport.
From the outset the Peace Race simply welcomed guests. It knows of no single case of political or racial discrimination, a practice which is unfortunately all too commonplace among the governments of the NATO block. For almost two decades the Peace Race has been providing a compelling example of the Olympic ideal in action, and of the pioneering work of socialist countries in the promotion of physical culture and sport.
The Peace Race is also a valuable contribution in the global effort for peaceful coexistence. Riders from NATO block countries find themselves in the company of those from the socialist camp. Riders from kingdoms strive to win the winning laurel together with riders from states ruled by workers and farmers. They may have the different views, but they are united by the symbols of the turning wheel and Picasso’s dove.
In recent days West German newspapers have finally rediscovered their ‘love’ for the Peace Race, by informing their readers that this year the number of participants is lower than for previous editions,49 Notwithstanding the fact that this circumstance is due to preparations for the Tokyo Olympics – the reason given by the Dutch for not accepting their invitation – it must be stated that something was finally written in West Germany following a long period of silence about the Peace Race. The revanchist state is the only one which has boycotted the race from the Vistula to the Vltava upon government instructions. The position of Bonn in relation to the Peace Race is clear. The ruling classes over there fear anything which promotes understanding, friendship among young people and peace among men.