World Notes Great Escapes

It wasn't a movie, but it probably will be. As he told it, Heinz Braun, an East Berlin tire salesman, last week painted his auto to resemble a Soviet patrol car, dressed himself and three mannequins in Red Army uniforms, and coolly drove through a Berlin Wall checkpoint to West Berlin. Wolfgang Quasner, 45, a West Berliner who claims to have helped more than 1,000 East European refugees in the past 20 years, identified himself as the mastermind. % Quasner said he and confederates photographed Soviet army patrols and then had uniforms made. They smuggled the mannequins and attire to Braun in East Berlin. Said Quasner: "You could never risk doing such a thing again. The East German guards will be wearing their eyes out watching for Soviet dummies in the future."