Other escapes were made simply by tricking border guards. Some people got through by flashing membership cards to the Munich Playboy Club, which looked remarkably like diplomatic corps passports. And an East German girl created "Soviet" uniforms for three male friends, then hid on the floor of their car as the Volpos waved them through a border crossing.
In recent years, most daring escapes have been by air. In 1979 two families (eight people) fled East Germany in a homemade hot-air balloon 84 feet high, and in 1984 Ivo Zdarsky flew to freedom in a home-built airplane.
