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Up Up and Away · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. From to nine, Germany was divided into two blocks,
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet run Eastern Block and the more capitalistic Western Block.
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  Speaker 1: In the East, democracy was all but obliterated, with heavy
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  Speaker 1: restrictions placed on what media and political ideologies were allowed.
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  Speaker 1: The press was an extension of the states, serving as
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  Speaker 1: a propaganda machine for the Communist Party. Anyone who spoke
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  Speaker 1: out against those in power were silenced. For people living
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  Speaker 1: in the Eastern Block, times were dark, which is why
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  Speaker 1: so many tried to flee. Unfortunately, the border between East
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  Speaker 1: and West Germany was almost impenetrable. Not only were armed
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  Speaker 1: guards stationed along the various walls and fences separating the
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  Speaker 1: two sides, but they were all manner of deterrence, waiting
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  Speaker 1: for anyone who dared to try to climb over. Barbed
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  Speaker 1: wire was a common sight. As we're watch towers where
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  Speaker 1: guards would keep an eye on activity and shine searchlights
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  Speaker 1: on anyone they thought trying to cross. Ten thousand people
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  Speaker 1: attempted to escape the Eastern Block. Nearly a thousand of
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  Speaker 1: them died trying. But two families tried to get out
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, and they did it in the
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  Speaker 1: most unique and dangerous way possible. The plan was hatched
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  Speaker 1: by two men, electrician Peter Strelzek and Gunter Wetzel, who
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  Speaker 1: worked as a bricklayer. They had talked many times over
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  Speaker 1: the years about how they wanted to escape the Eastern Bloc,
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  Speaker 1: concocting various schemes to get past the border. They were
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  Speaker 1: mental x sizes more than true actual plans, the way
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  Speaker 1: two people might talk about committing the perfect crime for fun.
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  Speaker 1: But it wasn't until March of ninety eight when true
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  Speaker 1: inspiration hit. Gunter's sister in law had moved out of
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  Speaker 1: East Germany in the late fifties, but had come back
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  Speaker 1: to see family. She'd brought with her a magazine featuring
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  Speaker 1: an article about a yearly festival held in the southwestern
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  Speaker 1: United States. The celebrations centered around a certain mode of transportation,
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  Speaker 1: and it gave the bricklayer an idea. He showed his
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  Speaker 1: friend the article, and the two men agreed that was
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  Speaker 1: how they were getting out. Unfortunately, though they were good
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  Speaker 1: with their hands, the men had never built such a
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  Speaker 1: device before. They traveled to their town's library for more information.
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  Speaker 1: Studying whatever books were available on the subject, they determined
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  Speaker 1: that they would need three thousand square feet of fabric,
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  Speaker 1: an amount that would have set off alarm bells within
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  Speaker 1: the state. To avoid trouble, they went to a store
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  Speaker 1: thirty miles away and told the clerk they had started
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  Speaker 1: a camping club. The fabric was to make tense, and
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  Speaker 1: apparently that was enough. Gunter took on the duty of
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  Speaker 1: stitching all the fabric together, spending two weeks in his
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  Speaker 1: bedroom behind his mother's sewing machine. Meanwhile, Peter was tasked
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  Speaker 1: with creating a power source and something to carry everyone in.
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  Speaker 1: He took two bottles of liquid propane and connected them
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  Speaker 1: with hoses that fed to a nozzle of his own design.
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  Speaker 1: Then he welded a five foot square metal plate to
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  Speaker 1: a few support beams, which was enough to hold a
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  Speaker 1: family of four. When they put their respective projects together,
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  Speaker 1: it was clear that Peter and Gunter had created something cool.
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  Speaker 1: Well hots actually a hot air balloon. They tested the
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  Speaker 1: balloon in April of ninety eight, driving out to an
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  Speaker 1: open clearing far from the watchful eyes of the state.
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  Speaker 1: They tried to fill the balloon with hot air by
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  Speaker 1: igniting the liquid propane, but it refused to inflate. The
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  Speaker 1: fabric was too porous to hold the gas inside. Sealing
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  Speaker 1: it didn't work either, so they returned home, where they
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  Speaker 1: incinerated the balloon to eliminate the evidence before getting back
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  Speaker 1: to work on version two point oh. After testing several
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  Speaker 1: of waterproof and nonporous fabrics, they settled on an inexpensive
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  Speaker 1: form of synthetic taffada. This time they traveled to a
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  Speaker 1: different store and claimed that they were part of a
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  Speaker 1: sailing club using the taffata to make sales for boats,
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  Speaker 1: and once again no one saw any issue was selling
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  Speaker 1: thousands of feet of fabric to two random guys off
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  Speaker 1: the street. One week later, the second balloon was ready
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  Speaker 1: for testing. Peter and Gunter turned to the field that
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  Speaker 1: night and hooked their taffeta creation to the gondola Peter
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  Speaker 1: had put together. Everything worked as they had hoped. The
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  Speaker 1: fire filled the fabric with gas, lifting the whole contraption
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  Speaker 1: off the ground. With a little more tinkering to make
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  Speaker 1: sure the fuel didn't run out too quickly, the men
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  Speaker 1: were ready to make their great escape. The time finally came.
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  Speaker 1: On the night of July three nine. Peter gathered his
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  Speaker 1: wife and two sons and set up in an abandoned field.
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  Speaker 1: The balloon carried them high into the air to an
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  Speaker 1: altitude of nearly seven thousand feet. Freedom was only a
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  Speaker 1: few hundred feet away. Without warning, though, a gust of
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  Speaker 1: wind pushed the family into a cloud. The water vapor
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  Speaker 1: weighed the taffeta down, bringing the balloon back to earth
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  Speaker 1: just shy of the border. The strelsas abandoned the downcraft
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  Speaker 1: and made their way on foot back home, which was
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  Speaker 1: over ten miles away. The authorities found the homemade hot
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  Speaker 1: air balloon a few hours later, and it was clear
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  Speaker 1: that if Peter and Gunter were going to make it
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  Speaker 1: out alive, they had to act fast. They bought up
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  Speaker 1: small bundles of taffota from all over East Germany to
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  Speaker 1: throw investigators off the trail, and fabricated a new balloon
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  Speaker 1: that was twice as large as the original. The new
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  Speaker 1: gondola was also constructed as well, one that could support
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  Speaker 1: the weight of more fuel and two families. They completed
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  Speaker 1: the new balloon just over a month later, and on
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  Speaker 1: September fifteenth, they took the only chance that they would
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  Speaker 1: get to put it to use. Both families left their
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  Speaker 1: homes and belongings behind. They drove to the launch sites
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  Speaker 1: and inflated the balloon just after one thirty in the morning.
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  Speaker 1: As it lifted into the air, the gondola tip to
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  Speaker 1: one side and the burners set the fabric on fire.
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  Speaker 1: One of the men had brought a fire extinguisher to
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  Speaker 1: quickly put out the floor him, but the problems only
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  Speaker 1: compounded from there. Next, the fabric, ripped in the hot
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  Speaker 1: air began to leak out, while a strong wind kept
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  Speaker 1: blowing out the burners, which had to be re lit.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed like their escape plan was destined to fail,
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  Speaker 1: and then ten minutes after takeoff, the balloon finally reached
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  Speaker 1: an altitude of six thousand, six hundred feet. It was
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  Speaker 1: cold up there, very cold, with temperatures dropping to about
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  Speaker 1: seventeen degrees fahrenheit. As they floated toward the border, huddling
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  Speaker 1: for warmth. Authorities below realized something was going on and
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  Speaker 1: turned on spotlights to try and catch them. Gunter, refusing
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  Speaker 1: to give up, cranked up the heat. The balloons soared
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  Speaker 1: upward another fourteen hundred feet, well out of range of
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  Speaker 1: the lights. They only had enough fuel for a short trip.
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  Speaker 1: The balloon descended rapidly and came down hard on the
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  Speaker 1: ground half an hour after they'd taken off. Gunter even
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  Speaker 1: broke his leg on impact. By the time all was
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  Speaker 1: said and done, Peter and Gunter's homemade balloon had traveled
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  Speaker 1: a whopping fifteen and a half mile. Shortly after landing,
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  Speaker 1: a police car pulled up to the crash site and
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  Speaker 1: found Peter and Gunter standing in the road. One of
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  Speaker 1: the men asked the officers, are we in the West?
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  Speaker 1: They were. The balloon had taken them across the border,
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  Speaker 1: out of the Eastern Bloc and into West Germany. After
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  Speaker 1: word got out about their daring escape, East Germany placed
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  Speaker 1: drastic limitations on how much fabric could be purchased by individuals,
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  Speaker 1: and anyone who wanted to buy propane had to register
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  Speaker 1: at first. But the Strelsas and the wet Cels didn't
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  Speaker 1: have to worry about that anymore. They had beaten the
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  Speaker 1: odds risked everything for life and liberty by traveling up
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  Speaker 1: up in a way and their beautiful hot air balloon.
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  Speaker 1: Thomas Edison is known today as a great inventor, from
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  Speaker 1: the light bulb to the phonograph. There's no doubt that
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  Speaker 1: Edison's work has made an indelible impression on the world
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  Speaker 1: as a whole. However, for all the good he did,
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  Speaker 1: there was also plenty that he accomplished that was questionable.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes it even delved into illegal and immoral territory. For example,
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  Speaker 1: he once drafted a pr campaign to prove that Nikola
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  Speaker 1: Tesla's new A C current was unsafe compared to his
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  Speaker 1: own DC current. To do this, he electrocuted several animals
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  Speaker 1: using AC power, including a five ton circus elephant known
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  Speaker 1: as Topsy. Edison was also greedy. One of his first inventions,
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  Speaker 1: an electric voting machine, was meant to make the act
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  Speaker 1: of voting faster and more efficient. At the time, many
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  Speaker 1: votes were often cast orally, with voters calling out YEA
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  Speaker 1: or nay to mark their choice. Unfortunately, no state or
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  Speaker 1: local government wanted to use Edison's machine because it was
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  Speaker 1: just too fast. It would keep politicians from campaigning between
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  Speaker 1: each vote, so Edison decided to use his inventing prowess
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  Speaker 1: for only two reasons. An invention had to serve a purpose,
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  Speaker 1: and it had to make him money. One of his
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  Speaker 1: most success full endeavors was the Kintograph, built in eighteen ninety.
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  Speaker 1: It was an evolution of what Leland Stratford had created
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven, where he lined up twenty four
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  Speaker 1: still cameras along a race track and outfitted each of
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  Speaker 1: them with a trip wire. Stanford then had a horse
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  Speaker 1: run around the track, with each tripped wire triggering a
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  Speaker 1: camera's shutter. When the photos were arranged in sequence, it
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  Speaker 1: looked like the horse was running. Edison's creation, however, used
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  Speaker 1: a newer kind of film made of celluloid, a flammable
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  Speaker 1: type of plastic. To better demonstrate the superiority of the Kintograph,
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  Speaker 1: he built a movie studio near his lab, which he
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  Speaker 1: called the Black Maria. It was aptly named, looking like
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  Speaker 1: a big black cabin in the middle of West Orange,
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  Speaker 1: New Jersey. What made it special was its ingenious way
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  Speaker 1: of allowing Edison to film practically all day long. The
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  Speaker 1: Black Maria sat on wheels that rotated by fifteen degrees
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  Speaker 1: every hour. This allowed Edison to capture as much sunlight
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  Speaker 1: as possible throughout the day. To let end even more lights,
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  Speaker 1: he would often open the retract a bowl roof. Edison
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  Speaker 1: owned three studios across New Jersey and New York, cornering
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  Speaker 1: the East coast moving picture market that he helped create.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, with success came competition, and Edison made sure
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  Speaker 1: that he nipped that in the bud before it ever
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  Speaker 1: got out of hand. He joined forces with several other
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  Speaker 1: motion picture patent holders, including Eastman Kodak, and formed the
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  Speaker 1: Motion Picture Patents Company, or mp PC. The mp PC
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  Speaker 1: owned so many industry specific patents that any independent studio
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  Speaker 1: caught trying to make a movie without permission would find
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  Speaker 1: themselves on the receiving end of a lawsuit. Sometimes local
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  Speaker 1: mobsters were brought in to let the directors know who
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  Speaker 1: was in charge. One studio bore the brunt of nearly
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  Speaker 1: three hundred lawsuits all by itself. It seemed that nobody
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  Speaker 1: could make inroads in what was becoming a lucrative industry,
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  Speaker 1: so independent artists started looking elsewhere to make their movies.
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  Speaker 1: One such place ended up becoming the perfect location for
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  Speaker 1: their new operation. It was warm all year had dependable weather,
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  Speaker 1: and its court system was far more forgiving towards small
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  Speaker 1: business owners than Edison's trust of patent holders. Around nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o eight, five years after the town was incorporated, the
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  Speaker 1: first studios began moving to this oasis of entertainment, and
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  Speaker 1: as they started making movies again, the lawsuits quickly followed.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't until seven years later when things finally changed.
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  Speaker 1: A civil suit was filed against the Motion Picture Patents Company,
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  Speaker 1: and the courts found that Edison's trust was in violation
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  Speaker 1: of the Sherman Antitrust Act of eighteen ninety. The mp
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  Speaker 1: PC could no longer use its collection of patents to
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  Speaker 1: stop competition or end another filmmaker's business. Edison had lost
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  Speaker 1: his monopoly on making movies, which allowed other studios to
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  Speaker 1: soar to new heights. The inventor closed down his studio
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  Speaker 1: shortly after the ruling, but he shouldn't have been too discouraged.
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  Speaker 1: After all, if it wasn't for Thomas Edison's greed, those
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  Speaker 1: competing film studios would never have moved west to a
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  Speaker 1: sleepy little hamlet in the middle of Los Angeles. Kel
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  Speaker 1: A Warnia, the Wizard of Menlo Park, accidentally invented one
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  Speaker 1: of the longest lasting and most successful industries in history, Hollywood.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,