1978: SECRETS of the Berlin SMUGGLERS | Tonight | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

Eddie Vickers reports on smuggling people over the border from East to West Germany. This has become a booming trade. Eddie speaks with Kay-Uwe Mierendorff, a prolific escape organiser, about how he organises escapes, the ethics of making a profit from it, and the ways that he and other people smugglers stay one step ahead of the authorities. Dieter Heffner, a former East German prisoner who now runs a small escape organisation, demonstrates one of the modified cars he uses to smuggle people across the border. Part of the rear axel has been removed in order to create a secret compartment behind the back seat. Heffner is a former dissident, and claims that he facilitates escapes for political reasons, rather than profit. In order to stem the tide of escapes, East Germany has established a secret police department to infiltrate the escape organisations, making the practice more dangerous than ever. Mierendorff is confident that his organisation has not been infiltrated, because they do such thorough background checks on drivers and potential escapees. Frau Weber has only recently escaped to West Germany. She doesn't feels that the escape organisations are trustworthy in general, but she acknowledges that it is incredibly difficult to escape without them, and she felt that the organisation that arranged her escape took a lot of precautions. Finally, Vickers speaks to Herr Karl-Heinz Schmitz, the Deputy Chairman of the West Berlin CDU, about what West Berlin's official position on escape organisations is. Clip taken from Tonight, originally broadcast on BBC One, 23 May, 1978. You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults. Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?... You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive