Escaping on a light airplane

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Since the late 1960s, Gerhard Hoch had worked as a police officer at the border crossing Furth im Wald. There he witnessed numerous attempts to escape across the border in various ways. Once a Slovak got across the border on a light airplane. He had built that plane himself using the engine of a Trabant. Directly above Hoch's head he flew over the border at Furth im Wald. He landed only when he recognized the nearby district town of Cham. The man was given asylum and later returned to Slovakia. In the period of the Iron Curtain all refugees were in general granted asylum. Hoch recalls: “In the days of the Iron Curtain, I can’t recall anybody whose application was rejected. Nobody was sent back.”

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Gerhard Hoch

Gerhard Hoch was born in 1940 in Weiden in the region of Oberpfalz. In 1959, he started to work for the Federal Border-Protection Service. In 1967, he enrolled to the Bavarian police. Based on his experience with the Bohemian border, he opted for a position with the Border-Police Commissariat in Furth im Wald. For some years, he worked in middle-rank positions at the Border-Police station in Höll. Since 1981, he was heading a unit at the border crossing Furth im Wald. In 2000, he retired. His day-to-day work mostly entailed the clearing of travelers but he also experienced escape attempts, the brutality of some of the officials at the border crossing or the cooperation with the Czechoslovak colleagues and the opening of the border in 1989.

Grenzübergang Furth im Wald / Folmava

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Der Straßengrenzübergang Furth im Wald / Folmava (Vollmau) war seit 1949 gesperrt. Am 18. Juli 1964 wurde er wiedereröffnet. Im Vorfeld musste der Grenzübergang baulich auf die kommende Verkehrsbelastung vorbereitet werden. Neben dem Straßenübergang wurde zudem 1964 ein Fußgängerüberweg geöffnet. Zudem befindet sich in Furth im Wald ein Grenzbahnhof, der auf der Strecke Schwanberg - Furth im Wald - Pilsen liegt.