When Heinz gave it the beans 

I just googled him and found a news article about the escape. Heinz Meixner was a 20-year-old electronic engineer from Linz, Austria, who worked in West Berlin and could therefore cross between east and west as often as he wanted, and met (and fell in love with) Margarete Thurau in an East Berlin disco (or Tanzpalast, as they were called there). When the German Democratic Republic didn't allow her to leave after they became engaged, he decided to risk it. In may of 1963 he rented the sports car (an Austin Healy Sprite), removed the windshield, put his fiance on the back seat under a blanket and his mother in law to be in the trunk (that he also lined with a brick wall). Then he drove to the border, without actually arising supsicion, until he came to a checkpoint, where he was supposed to stop, but instead put the pedal to the medal, and drove under the barrier to the western side (his skidmarks on the western side were supposedly more than 25 meters long, so he was indeed very fast). In the west he became somewhat of a star for a short time and the German Democratic Republic immediately changed the layout of their barriers, adding vertical steel braces to them just a day later. He and Margit Thurau married in August of 1963 in West Berlin and some time later moved to Linz, Austria. Sadly it seems that he used up all his luck in that escape, because a few years later he died way too young, when he accidentally dropped an electric razor into a sink filled with water and instinctively tried to grab it, electrocuting himself.

I love being able to actually watch the people's thinking show up on their faces in all these clips!

According to a website, another guy named Norbert Konrad heard about this trick, also rented a sports car two months later, drove to East Berlin and escaped with his fiancée just like that - it was the exact same car! After that, some metal bars were added beneath the barrier.

Wow, If I saw that in an action movie I'd think it was unrealistic and the script writers shouldn't quit their day jobs. But not only did they try it in real life, it worked! Jason Bourne would stand in awe of this group.

I love how Tom just goes full Brannan with his nose answer!

Here I was thinking there was some sort of permit stuck in the windscreen that they didn't want people to see.

I knew this story, and was very impressed with how quickly they got the answer!

Good to know that sometimes real life is an action movie.

That is a cracking video title 😂😂😂

My husband and I listened to this episode tonight and both cackled with laughter multiple times. I had a minor pulmonary embolism last week so laughing that hard kind of hurt, but I thoroughly enjoyed the episode despite the pain! The Churchill Slide is a particularly excellent moment. 😆

Dani, Bill, and Will are a fantastic trio yo have on for the pod, more of them pls!

"Somebody has to return the rental" was a great thought. But i assume it was rented in the west and he legally crossed to the east to pick up his east-German girlfriend. Would be surprised if there were sports-car rental in East Germany at that time. Also good thinking putting some protection against bullets (aka the MIL) it the trunk.

Dani and Bill are a hoot. I love every episode they’re in.

The first time I’ve known the answer straight away! Thank you GCSE History (Cold War)!

I read an article about this a good while back. I think it was from the early 90's and showed how they were in the car and how low it really was.

Hearing "taking the WINDSHIELD off his RENTED sports car" in an Aussie accent broke my brain a little.

Impressive solve by this team

I feel like I've seen Steve McQueen do this stunt, but maybe that's just the Great Escape creeping into my brain.

So genius!

Since the Mauerfall (fall of the Berlin wall) was "only" about 35 years ago, parents and grandparents still have loads of stories about the time before. From the eastern German Trabant car ("Trabbi") everyone in the DDR tried to get their hands on (which was difficult) to things being smuggled into the DDR and people out of it by hiding it/them creatively in vehicles (false bottoms, under the seats, sometimes really crazy stuff) and of course other way to get out of the country like tunneling under the border from the cellars of houses for months only to be caught on the day they finished the tunnel or flying over the border via hot air ballon.

Reminds me of that clip from a parking garage where a Lambo manages to slip underneath the barrier without paying.

"Herr Meixner, where is the windshield?" "It was ... stolen by the Stasi... yeah, that's what happened."

I spent a good chunk of this certain that it was a DIFFERENT case of smuggling someone out of East Berlin, when they hid the person inside the dashboard of a car. Stands to reason that in order to take a dashboard off enough to get a person entirely behind it, you might have to take the windshield off first!

What if they shoot at us? I know, bricks!

I knew this one! As soon as they mentioned border I started thinking about the names and remembered my mom telling me a story where a man smuggled something across the border after having measured the border crossing and picking the correct car. Thanks mom!

Brilliant.

The Berlin Wall was built in August 1961

I love how Bill makes a joke and immediately starts to treat the joke as if it was part of the known facts 😂

I have only listened to the first few seconds of this, but I remember a friend of mine taking his Caterham 7 straight under the barrier at the Severn crossing without paying, he got chased down by the police and had the book throw at him. I suspect barriers have summat to do with it.

I feel there could be an Tom Scott episode about the stool at “the house at checkpoint charly”. If memory serves there was a permanent lookout who could help in case of East Germans fleeing.

I almost got it. I assumed it was because of stickers on the windshield and they had to conceal the foreign license/inspection stamps.

Bill having a pop filter in front of a SM58 which has a built in pop filter is wild

My guess was they were worried the checkpoint guards would actually take the windshield in order to sell it.

This is SO FUNNY but its crazy that they even had to do something like this because humanity makes shit decisions and we are terrible with each other

My first thought was about the bloke transporting his girlfriend in a casket. Happy to know I was wrong.

Great cast and episode ❤

"What does a car look like..." hehe

I knew this one.

The fact that a country will prevent its citizens from leaving is stunning. Like it's a prison!

Initial thoughts: Heinz was in Europe (German-sounding name), and Thurau's (Thoreau's) home was in America. They had to go by either sea or air. Removing the windshield from its upright position, reduced the total boxy volume of the car as cargo, and thus was both cheaper and fitted the transportation mean available for them. The car being necessary to _drive_ her home.

Is that “ayy!” In the music a sample of Tom’s voice?

I'm 99% sure I heard this story somewhere else recently, maybe on a different podcast? Anybody else know what I'm talking about?

He was actually correct about the name difference mattering! Thurau is an eastern name, my impression is Prussian although idk, and Meixner is a Saxon name.

She stuck her nose up and got a free nose job. Boarder guards, "What the hell was that." "Who nose?" Maybe we can look at the tape." "Now, not who knows, Who nose is that on the ground."

Now there is True Love there. and mother in law?? well??

Nineteen seconds in... Ooh! I know this one!!!

Question. Did Ian Fleming's James Bond do it first or take inspiration from it?

Did anybody make the joke about the bullet-catcher inlaw in the boot?

B..b..BEAANZ!?

Williams tshirt is dope😂

I thought he took the windshield off because he had very bad gas from eating so many beans

Out of idle curiosity, I'm wondering what the make and model of that sports car was.

Could that have been the original lowrider?

BEANS!!!!!!

lady of the night for the Hit

I've known like five of these offhand now

how does removing the windsheilod help get the car across?

Sorry but where can I buy that pikachu tshirt?

Okay. Yes, it is amusing and worth laughing at now. But, I, personally, cannot imagine having to live in that atmosphere. It says something about how "wonderful" life behind the Iron Curtain must've been for all those people who went to some incredible lengths to get out. The thing that makes me laugh is when the gov't propaganda justified building the wall in order to prevent any outsiders from getting in to East Berlin.

Heinz is a genius 🔥

windsheild covered in beans

Might not interest everyone, but as people are asking how the car could do it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4-DGMrLGnLg.html