Beyond the Wall by Katja Hoyer

Author:Katja Hoyer [Hoyer, Katja]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141999357
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2023-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

7. Planned Miracles (1971–1975)

We were in the middle of the Cold War, neither side worked with silk gloves.

Honecker Strikes

Marx-Engels-Platz, East Berlin, late April 1971. It was around 1 p.m. when Yuri Bassistov, a senior member of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG), pulled up in front of the headquarters of the Central Committee of the SED. An imposing square of stone and concrete, it was built by the Nazis to house the Reichsbank. One of the few purpose-built office blocks in Berlin to survive the Second World War, it has been in use ever since it was finished in 1938. Bassistov had not come to admire the bombastic architecture. He was on a top-secret mission. In the morning, he had received his briefing from his immediate superior Leonid Maltsev, a Belarusian officer freshly graduated from Kyiv Higher Military Command School who would later serve as Minister of Defence of Belarus from 2001 to 2009.

Bassistov was to pick up the Central Committee member Werner Lamberz from Marx-Engels-Platz pretending that the politician was meant to give a talk in front of Soviet officers. Only Bassistov, Maltsev and the Soviet ambassador Pyotr Abrassimov were in the know. In the presence of Lamberz’s colleagues, Bassistov chatted with well-feigned interest about the supposed talk and he continued to uphold the charade in the car where a Stasi officer accompanied the Central Committee member as usual. Bassistov knew the security man would be difficult to shake off. But the Soviets had come up with a cunning plan. When they arrived at the GSFG headquarters in Zossen-Wünsdorf after a 50-kilometre drive south, Maltsev had coffee ready for everyone. Conversation remained on the ‘talk’ and the logistics of it. Maltsev informed the other three men that he wanted to host it at a military base near Magdeburg. He told the Stasi man that he would not have to travel the two to three hour journey with his charge. They would use a military vehicle and Soviet security personnel. The politician would be delivered back to the office the next day, courtesy of the Red Army. Satisfied that Lamberz was in safe hands, Mielke’s man went back home to Berlin. Bassistov remembered how, a few minutes later, the luxurious GAZ-13 Chaika they had come in ‘passed through controls as reported by checkpoint Zossen and we had the green light to begin with “the talk”. We rushed to the military airport of Sperenberg, just a few kilometres away. A twin turbo-prop AN-24 plane stood on the runway, ready for take-off. It is worth pointing out that even the crew had no idea who their only passenger was. The next day, the plane returned from Moscow as expected. Lamberz was in a good mood and briefly reported that everything had gone well and the decision had been made.’1

A few days later, on 2 May 1971, Walter Ulbricht asked to resign from his office as First Secretary of the Secretariat of the SED. Lamberz had been sent to Moscow to

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