Erika Holzer - Freedom Bridge

Elsewhere throughout Germany, the East and West had always been separated by fences and barriers, he thought. Checkpoints and guard shacks. Barbed wire and land mines. Scrutiny by watchtowers that were manned by Vopos with machine guns. Swimming across a lake or a river even in darkness was problematical.

Yet according to the grapevine, a handful of would-be defectors had made it out not long ago. The student who’d buried his fiancée in a trunkful of clothes. Two heavily-clothed families, eleven kids between them, who’d flattened themselves under a refrigerated truckload of frozen meat. Some electrician who had scurried hand-over-hand across a disconnected high-tension cable. Four East German soldiers who’d bulled their way through fences and mines in an old armored Cadillac.

Such incidents were unique, unrepeatable—ideas that worked only once because the border patrols hadn’t anticipated them.

The Zind brothers, Erich and Gunther, climbed into the front seat. “Crew’s all counted,” Gunther said to Albert.

“Come up with any ideas?” Erich asked him.

“Not yet.”.

He headed for the marshalling yard. When he pulled up, his foreman was pacing outside the engineering office.

“I know, I know,” Albert grumbled as he and his brothers emerged from the truck. “We just cost you an hour out of your schedule. But everyone is soaked to the skin.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Mueller groaned. “Those new steel supports I ordered? They’re being delivered on Wednesday. Day after tomorrow.”

“So?”

“So I need to be on the bridge when they get here! But they want me in Berlin that day so they can grill me about the delays on repairing this godforsaken bridge. How can I be in two places at once?”

“What are you worried about? I’m an engineer too. I’ll handle it.”

Mueller was visibly relieved. “Then do,” he said.

As Albert and his brothers waited in the rain for the bus ride home, a torrent of water rushed down the gutter heading for the sewer—prompting Albert’s thoughts to turn to tunneling. A lot of tunnels would be built—eventually. But not yet. Lousy timing , he thought as he replayed what Kiril had told them last night…

Any minute now this whole town can be subjected to a house-by-house search by Vopos—maybe even Russians. We’re running out of time.

That Monday evening as everyone sat around the dining room table, Albert raised a troubling question. “Is it time to relocate the three of you?”

“Where to?” Kurt Brenner asked.

“A place far from the border until I can come up with a plan.”

“No,” Kiril said with quiet emphasis. “The time is now. The place is Glienicker Bridge.”

Albert’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you think you’ll have better luck than your dead friend?” he asked solemnly.

“I’m not irresponsible, Albert,” Kiril said, not taking offense. “It’s just that we’re too close to run. We’re only meters from West Germany. But run deeper into East Germany? I’m convinced that the risk is much worse. Is there any chance we could pose as members of your construction crew?”

“Not with the share-the-work policy,” Erich said.

“Which means what?” Brenner asked.

“A labor pool. Albert has to choose a different crew every morning. It’s for security reasons. The idea is to keep everyone off balance. Make it harder for anyone to plan an escape attempt in advance—like hiding under the truck after a head count,” he said drily.

Albert stood up. “There is a way to switch crew members,” he said as the room went quiet. “Kiril and the Brenners could take the place of Erich, Gunther and our friend Otto Dorf. My foreman expects delivery of new bridge supports the day after tomorrow. But Mueller has to be in Berlin. I promised I’d take up the slack—get the new supports to the bridge early in the morning. Do whatever engineering work comes up until he gets back.” He cracked a smile. “But when we finish work, I won’t leave the truck at the marshalling yard like I usually do. I’ll take it to Otto’s uncle’s warehouse. We’ll build a false wall in the tool cabinet, creating a hidden space about six feet wide by three feet deep to hide all three of you—close enough to the middle of the bridge to make a run for it.”

Kiril knew why Adrienne looked alarmed. Brenner was claustrophobic.

Would he be able to keep from panicking?

“Let’s run though it one more time,” Albert said as they ate breakfast Tuesday morning. “Today and tonight, the three of you sit tight here. Wednesday, we’ll hide you behind the false wall in the cabinet while I drive the truck to the yard to pick up the bridge supports.”

Brenner’s jaw tightened.

“Once we’re loaded and the crew is on the truck, Erich and Gunther will ride with their backs against the cabinet—”

“Why?” Brenner cut in.

“An excess of caution. We want to be sure no one else goes near it. Not a single member of the crew, and no one else. No one .”

Erich and Gunther nodded.

“Agreed,” Otto chimed in.

“What about the tear gas on the bridge?” Erich wondered out loud.

Brenner paled. “Tear gas? You people must be crazy!”

“Not a problem,” Albert said calmly. “When we get to the bridge, the truck will appear to be empty. Even though the Vopos routinely spray front to back and top to bottom to smoke out anyone who’s hiding, we’ll have already sealed the compartment where the three of you will be standing.”

“Bottom line, Kurt, no gas will seep in,” Adrienne said impatiently.

“So all three of us are on the bridge,” Kiril said. “Then what?”

“We create a diversion. Maybe a fire from the hot rivets. Maybe a fight. Someone could fall into the river.” Albert shrugged. “We’ll figure out something plausible to distract the guards. It’s only about ten yards.”

“That’s one helluva lot of ‘maybes,’” Brenner said frostily. “This brilliant plan has more holes than a slab of Swiss cheese.”

Adrienne could only roll her eyes at Kurt’s unseemly outburst.

As she started to help Frieda Zind scrape remnants of sausage and scrambled eggs from the breakfast plates, she was rewarded with a tentative smile on that ravaged face.

“Level with me,” Kiril said as Albert stood up to leave. “Even if we do escape, aren’t you and your family in jeopardy?”

“We knew the risk when we took you in.”

“I guess what I’m really asking is whether there’s a way we can do this without your being exposed.”

“You know there isn’t. Sure, we might be arrested and interrogated, maybe beat up some. But it’s capitalism that’ll save us.”

Kiril and Adrienne were stunned. Instead of just cracking a smile, Albert actually grinned.

“For years, the East German regime has done a brisk business with West Berlin swapping relatives and friends,” Albert explained. “We don’t have either. What we do have is something that’s in short supply in West Berlin—skilled workers. In our case, a structural engineer and a couple of iron workers.”

“And in return, East Germany gets what?” Kiril asked.

“Consumer goods that are practically unobtainable in this so-called worker’s paradise. Coffee, butter, spare parts, electronic equipment. As for our Soviet comrades taking it out on us for helping you, there’s one thing we can count on. It won’t be a Soviet affair because everything we’re doing takes place here in East Germany. So if you make it out—and I think your chances are excellent—the regime won’t want any publicity about a single defection, let alone three, two of them Americans.”