It was in the summer of '89
The 12th of August

It started in Hamburg
In his old, sky-blue Ford Granada
Kassel mountains, Würzburg, Nuremberg, Linz, Vienna
He left everything behind
The destination was Burgenland, the Austrian-Hungarian border
In Mattersburg he got himself "the best bolt cutter money could buy"
Almost four hundred Schilling
In Mörbisch am See he checked into the Pension Peterhof
Bought a kebab and waited for the night
Just after one there was a knock at his door
The contact man gave him a letter
And disappeared again without saying a word
He memorized the letter and set off on foot
Down the Ödenburger Straße, past the last lanterns
And just before the bend into the field path, right in until the very end
The last hundred meters further through the tall grass
Into the small grove
Waited out the border patrol at 3:30
Flashlight out three times short, two times long
And then in the clearing he saw them
They were coming
Running

It was in the summer of '89, a flight at dawn
He was the type who sneaked through the night
And cut holes in the fence
At a Hungarian border
At the first dawn
Only a bolt cutter needed
For holes in the fence
In the summer of '89

When they were through the fence
They ran as fast as the children allowed to the first lanterns
Fourteen people, three families
No champagne corks, no confetti cheers
Only great relief and even greater exhaustion
They went together to the bus station, sat on the benches
And waited for the 6:22 bus to Vienna
They hardly spoke out of sheer exhaustion
Only once did one of the children ask him
What the slogan on his Dead Kennedys T-shirt meant
When the bus arrived on time, he gave a father his Vienna city map
With the circled address of the German embassy
He distributed his last Schillings among the three families
And wished them all a good life
They thanked him tearfully and many times for everything
In a language and a dialect that he barely understood
He suspected at the time that it was Saxon

It was in the summer of '89, a flight at dawn
He was the type who sneaked through the night
And cut holes in the fence
At a Hungarian border
At the first dawn
Only a bolt cutter needed
For holes in the fence

Back in Hamburg then the big on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand discussion
At the shared kitchen table with his friends
On the one hand, the action would of course have been well-intentioned
Because of the families and so on
But on the other hand, a German unity
And that's where the development of the last few weeks was heading, a big mistake
Germany must never again become a power bloc in the middle of Europe
And such help for the escape of GDR citizens
Would only contribute to further destabilization of the situation
So as I said "The action was humanly understandable
But still wrong"
He slapped the table top with his flat hand
And said as quietly as he could
"You know that's nonsense
They leave everything behind and they flee and maybe"
He paused briefly and wondered if he should really say the last sentence
But no more words
A complete silence set in
The others just exchanged glances, some smiled mildly
Someone even gently put a hand on his shoulder
The seconds passed
He got up, left the room
Jacket, door, staircase, air
He took his old Ford Granada
And was never seen again
The rest is history

It was in the summer of '89, a flight at dawn
It was in the summer of '89, and he cut holes in the fence
They came for kiwis and bananas
For the Basic Law and free elections
For worthless real estate
They came for Udo Lindenberg
For the VW with seven seats
For the bad Ossi jokes
Came for travel around the world
For Hartz IV and welcome money
They came for Better-Wessi sayings
For the new fitted kitchen
And exactly for this dream
He cut holes in the fence

CONSULTER LES PAROLES ORIGINALES