Scarborough, Queensland, Australia

The internet has been a magical tool for us in Australia. Through its marvellous technology we have made new friends, kept in touch with old ones and received pictures of our brand new nephew, James, within hours of his birth.

And it was using the internet that Herbert was able to have an Australian reunion with two very special people, his partners in a daring plan of Cold War intrigue that took place in divided Berlin 22 years ago.

Herbert and Wolfgang’s friendship went back to the days when the two were youthful buddies in West Berlin. Together they dreamed of travel, and they jointly applied to immigrate to Canada, hoping to save enough money to drive to the tip of South America. Herbert’s application was accepted and Wolf’s was not, so Herbert came to Canada alone, hoping eventually to be joined by his friend.

That long-dreamed-of trip never happened. Instead, Herbert met me, Wolfgang met Gabriela, and everyone’s future took a different path.

Gabriela had the misfortune to live in East Berlin during that sad time when Germany was divided by communism. Ordinary East Germans were trapped behind a monstrous wall of concrete, barbed wire and automatic weapons that did not permit them to join their countrymen in free West Germany except at risk of imprisonment or death. Beautiful young Gaby, age 23, dreamed of nothing else but leaving the prison that was East Germany under communist rule.

In was early in 1977, about six months after Herbert and I had met, that the plan for Gaby’s escape from East Germany was born. Herbert was back in Germany for several months, and he and Wolf, both 23, were sitting together late one evening dreaming up, as they often did, plans for Gaby’s freedom.

Just about every method of escaping, from flying over the wall in a hot air balloon, to concealing people in secret compartments in cars, had already been tried, discovered, and eliminated by ruthless East German secret police. Many people had died in the attempt.

But this night Wolf had thought up a brand new plan, one that as far as he knew, had never before been tried. And in a moment of weakness - or strength - or foolishness - or heroism - Herbert agreed to help, even though to be an accomplice could result in a lengthy sentence in an East German jail.

It was a brilliant plan. It involved two drivers, two identical cars and two East German visas - one permitting unlimited stopping, and one authorizing only a quick transit through.

Visitors with a tourist visa could travel throughout East Germany, but their cars would be carefully searched by armed border guards to ensure no hidden people were being snuck across the border. There was no hope of smuggling a person out that way.

But cars with a transit visa were generally not searched. This was because transit visa holders were permitted to drive only on one heavily patrolled highway through East Germany to West Berlin, a small island of freedom completely surrounded by communist territory. Because they were kept under constant surveillance, cars on transit visas were rarely searched. If it was possible to get Gaby into a car with a transit visa, there was a good chance that she could be smuggled into West Berlin right under the noses of the border police.

Wolfgang’s plan took advantage of a weakness in the system that permitted cars with either type of visa to use the same highway rest stop. Herbert, driving into East Germany on a tourist visa, would pick up Gaby and hide her in his trunk. He would then drive to the rest stop and enter the restaurant.

Already waiting in the restaurant would be Wolfgang, who would have driven from Berlin on a transit visa all the way through East Germany to West Germany and back. At this stop, the two cars would be switched.

Herbert would get into Wolf’s car and continue his trip through East Germany on his tourist visa. He would be searched, but the car would be empty.

Wolf, on the other hand, would return to the car with Gabriela in the trunk. He would return on the controlled highway, show his transit visa at the border, and then trust that his car would not be searched.

Herbert has often told me that from the moment he impulsively agreed to help Wolf with his plan, he regretted having made the promise. But he had given his word, so the two went to work, spending four months in careful preparation.

They procured two identical cars and cleverly succeeded in obtaining matching license plates and registrations for them. They rehearsed every phase of the operation, driving their routes with stopwatches and timing every aspect of the escape with military precision.

Finally the day came. No one but the three of them, and a seventeen year old Canadian girl anxiously waiting thousands of miles away, knew that a very secret plan was underway.

Herbert picked up Gaby, who carried nothing but a small bag. Silently, they drove to a deserted place and Gaby climbed into the trunk of the blue Mercedes. Checking his watch every few minutes, Herbert proceeded to the rendezvous point.

When he got out at the rest stop, Herbert noticed he was being watched by two men in a car with Polish license plates. This worried him. The weakest part of the plan was the moment when the two actually exchanged cars, for although Herbert and Wolf had worn identical clothes, they could hardly be mistaken for each other: Herbert is shorter, and while his hair is straight and black, Wolf’s is blond and curly.

Wolf was already waiting in the restaurant, and after a few minutes, without making eye contact with Herbert, he walked out and returned to Herbert’s car, the one with a frightened Gaby huddled in the trunk. He, too, noticed two strange Polish men watching him. He couldn’t help but wonder if they suspected something.

All Wolf could do now was drive to the border as quickly as possible, and pray that nothing suspicious had been reported.

Half an hour later, as he pulled up to the checkpoint on the outskirts of West Berlin, Wolfgang’s heart was pounding. Everything rested on this moment: he would either return home a hero or spend the next decade in an East German jail.

When Wolf stopped at the border under the hostile scrutiny of guards armed with machine guns, his throat tightened. Inside the trunk, Gaby could feel the car come to a halt. She knew that the next 60 seconds would be the most pivotal in her life.

The border guard looked at Wolfgang’s papers. Wolf’s transit visa had been issued to a completely different car. Did the guard have some way of seeing through his deception?

The guard studied the papers carefully. Too carefully. Wolfgang had been through this checkpoint hundreds of times, and never had he seen it take so long. His heart began hurting in his chest as it jangled out its jumpy beat.

Then the guard did something unprecedented. He got out of his hut, and slowly, very slowly, began walking around Wolf’s car, looking carefully at the license plate and comparing it with the registration papers. Wolf could hardly breathe. He had never seen a transit border guard leave his hut. They were only allowed to search a car if they had good reason.

Why was he receiving this extra scrutiny? Had the Polish men really been agents of the secret police?

Inside the stuffy trunk, stifled with fear, Gaby held her breath. She didn’t know what was happening either, but she knew this stop was taking far too long. At any minute she expected the trunk to be yanked open and herself marched off at gunpoint.

The armed guard finished his slow circling of the car. He paused at the driver’s side window, and took a long moment while he studied Wolfgang’s face. Wolf tried not to flinch under his scrutiny.

"You may proceed," the guard said abruptly, handing back the papers.

Wolf felt dizzy with relief. They had done it! Now all that remained was for Herbert to make it back as well.

An hour and a half later Herbert approached his border checkpoint, his hands clammy with sweat. If anything had gone wrong with Wolfgang and Gaby, he would not be returning to West Berlin that night, but would find himself in a concrete cell instead.

The routine search of his car revealed no evidence of anything unusual. His false registration papers and license plate were not questioned. Herbert was through, and barely saw the garish lights of West Berlin through eyes filled with tears.

After throwing the false license plates into a canal and restoring the car’s correct ones, Herbert joined Wolf and Gaby in a joyful celebration that involved opening more than one bottle of champagne. Then he made a phone call to Canada, to me.

The day before, I had received an unusual call from this unconventional German boyfriend of mine, who had obliquely let me know what was going on. Without giving me all the details, Herbert did convey that some danger was involved. If the plan went wrong, he had not wanted to simply disappear without me knowing why. He also asked me not to wait for him if he should not return from East Germany, but to carry on with my life.

Finally I received the call I had been so anxiously awaiting, with the sounds of jubilation in the background almost drowning out Herbert’s voice. At last he was free to share with me what he had done -- and I learned that my sweetheart was a hero.

After that, neither Herbert nor Wolfgang was ever able to enter East Germany again. Within two days, the secret police had interrogated every East German connected with any of the three. They even instructed a former girlfriend of Herbert’s to try to entice him to visit. As far as we know, they never figured out exactly how Gaby was smuggled out, although they knew Herbert and Wolfgang were somehow involved.

Wolfgang and Gaby immigrated to Australia soon after, and Herbert returned to Canada. For many years Herbert and Wolfgang exchanged letters, and we learned that after some years of marriage Wolf and Gaby had divorced, although they remained good friends. But then Herbert and Wolfgang somehow lost contact, and by the time we arrived in Australia it had been ten years since they communicated and we didn’t even know if either of them still lived there.

So one day Herbert began searching on the internet and found a telephone listing in Sydney that might be Wolfgang’s. A few minutes later, Wolf got a phone call he was definitely not expecting.

Later Wolf told us that Herbert’s call had woken him up from a deep sleep, and for several weeks afterwards he wondered whether the call had just been a dream. But now that we were in Sydney, our first stop was Wolfgang’s home.

He hadn’t changed a bit, still tall and lanky, still that unruly blond hair. A laid-back, self-employed tile contractor, Wolf has a new wife and a passion for scuba diving.

From his mobile phone, Wolf dialed up Gaby, a wide grin on his face.

"Someone’s here who wants to talk to you," he told her. "You’ll never guess who."

That same evening, all of us were invited to dinner at the home of Gaby and her Australian husband, decorated elegantly in sophisticated tones of beige and black. Gaby, looking lean and fit, spoke flawless English, sounding every bit like the successful Australian businesswoman she now is. Even with the fall of communism, the tearing down of that hated Berlin wall and the reuniting of the two Germanies, she has never looked back.

The three old friends, reunited for the first time in 22 years, did not reminisce about that fateful time of fear and exhilaration or the courageous path they marched together so that Gaby could live in freedom.

But later, Wolf smiled reflectively and said quietly, "Without a doubt, getting Gaby out of East Germany was the scariest thing I have ever done."

Herbert nodded in agreement. "Me too."

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