The Cad Who Came In From the Cold

It was love at first sight, or so it seemed. Dashing, suave Peter Hansen, 25, a construction engineer, swept curvaceous Dorothea Voss, 17, off her feet with dancing by candlelight, dinners for two and sweet talk of marriage. Then off they motored from the West German town of Heide to West Berlin for a day's outing, with the blessing of the girl's parents. After lingering in sidewalk cafes, Peter suggested they go over to Communist East Berlin. "It'll be really interesting, darling," he whispered, tenderly pressing her hand.

Once through the Friedrichstrasse border checkpoint, Peter collected his girl friend's West German identity card to "keep her from losing it," parked her in a gloomy cafe on Karl Marx Alice with a kiss and a promise to return, and took off. Still starry-eyed, Dorothea waited and waited, but her Peter did not come back. Alone, and without her ID card, she could only go to the Volkspolizei for help. But the Vopos were in no mood to give courteous assistance to the lost traveler. Instead they tossed the sobbing Dorothea into jail on charges of complicity in an escape, for half an hour earlier, Peter

Hansen had passed through the Berlin wall with quite another Dorothea Voss.

Actually Hansen was an already happily married East German escapee named Peter Selle. Upon leaving the real Dorothea, he had dashed to an East Berlin rendezvous with his wife Barbara, whom he had left behind when he fled to West Germany a year ago. Pondering various schemes to get Barbara out, he had hit on the idea of finding a West German girl who resembled her closely, luring the girl to East Berlin and then filching her documents. Winsome Dorothea Voss seemed to fit the bill, and the scheme worked perfectly. Once in West Berlin the reunited couple sped to Tempelhof Airport and winged their way to West Germany.

Their bliss was only temporary, for by now West German police had been alerted by Dorothea's parents. Catching up with Selle, the cops threw the cad into the Flensburg jail, then appealed to the East German authorities on Dorothea's behalf. For once, Red Boss Walter Ulbricht's stern Vopos listened sympathetically, last week released a sadder but wiser Dorothea after six weeks behind bars.

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