At 6 pm on 9 November 1989, the press was summoned to the headquarters of the SED, Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or United Socialist Party of Germany, which controls the German Democratic Republic with an iron hand.
Gunther Schabowski, spokesman for the SED Politburo and party leader in East Berlin, is in charge of the meeting with journalists. The clock is not yet at 7 p.m. when Question Time begins. The correspondent of the Ansa agency, Riccardo Ehrman, who was late for the appointment due to parking problems, asks when the new scheme that allows citizens of East Germany to apply for permits to travel abroad will emigrate permanently without having to meet the requirements previously required to make such trips. Schabowski is not well informed and somewhat confused replies, “right away, from now on.”
The hundreds and hundreds of citizens of East Germany who follow the press conference live on television (Deutcher Fernsehfunk) and radio, pour into the streets of Berlin and head towards the wall that separates them from the western zone. They want to exercise their right to cross to the other side. The communist guards dare not face the human tide. One of them, at the stand on Bonholmer Strasse, raises the barrier. The Wall has fallen and many citizens will spend the next few days behind the wheel of small and outdated cars emitting bluish smoke from their exhaust: the Trabant P601.
Its image comes from another era, not in vain to know its origins you have to go to the early 1960s, when it was designed in the study center AWZ (Sachsenring Automobilwerk Zwickau). The history of the Sachsenring can be traced back to the factories of Horch (manufacturer of luxury cars up to the Second World War) and Audi in Zwickau. Horch was expropriated along with the rest of Auto Union in June 1948. In the same year, the factory was reopened as VEB HORCH Kfz- und Motorenwerke Zwickau, a company of the Association of the Vehicle Construction Industry (IFA). Initially trucks were made here.
Production of the new IFA H3A began in 1950, powered by a diesel engine also built in Zwickau. The Horch factory tried to continue luxury sedans with the P 240 “Sachsenring” (known as the Horch “Sachsenring”). The vehicle name was transferred to the factory in 1957, which was then renamed VEB Sachsenring Kfz- und Motorenwerk Zwickau. With the idea of putting a popular car on the street, for two adults and two children, with a weight adapted in such a way that a simple and small engine could run in it without spending more than 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers , they joined on May 1, 1958 to form “VEB Sachsenring Automobilwerke Zwickau”.
And so the AWZ P 70 was born, a small car that made it possible to gain the first experience with body parts made of duroplast, a plastic resin reinforced with cotton or wool fibers similar to those used in car cup lids.
The AWPZ P7 70 was only the prelude to the P 50, the first Trabant as such. Inspired by the Lloyd 400, it was first shown to the public at the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1957 and was produced until 1962. It was followed by the P 60 or Trabant 600, of which 106,117 units were produced until 1965. built. The 600 was a short-lived intermediate model that combined the external forms of the Trabant P 50 with the technical design of the Trabant 601. Both models were even produced together for several months.
And so we come to our protagonist, the Trabant P-601. Presented in March 1964, the engine is a simple two-cylinder 2-stroke air-cooled 594 cc, which will reach up to 26 DIN CV of power (transmitted to the ground through the front wheels), to displace only 600 kilos, adjusted weight obtained thanks to the duroplast body, which allows it to reach a top speed of 100 km/h with that small engine. The engine is mated to a four-speed gearbox (all synchronized) and the fourth with a freewheel mechanism that allows it to circulate “under sail”.
As for the design of the P-601, it remains to remember in smaller dimensions (we are talking about 3.51 meters long) and less fortunate proportions, the Peugeot 404 designed by Pininfarina. Let’s also not forget that there was a family version in addition to the two-door saloon, and we have to add two more variants: a pickup, and one with a canvas roof and no doors (very beach style), called Tramp.
The P-601 will be a successful model (not that there would be much competition in the GDR, except for the Wartburg) until 1990, it is said, a total of 2,818,547 units. That is why many East Germans drove this car over the wall. By the way, in the last series produced, the two-stroke engine (with a mixture of petrol and oil at 2%) should make way for a four-stroke petrol and 1043 cc (41 hp, 700 kilos and 125 km / h) of the Volkswagen Polo.
But this was not enough to survive.
And in 1990 this car was no longer produced that he was born to set a land surrounded by a wall on wheels. And that on November 9, 1989, he took many of them on the dream path of freedom.
By the way, in 2021, the German Federal Transport Agency identified more than 38,000 Trabants on the roads. No, it is not surprising that the “Trabi”, as it is called by its supporters, especially fans of the 60 series, has remained in the hearts of the Germans. Also in the eyes of the Wessis, the former citizens of the FRG, and today there are many enthusiasts who restore and maintain copies that they saved from death in a scrap heap.
Source: La Verdad
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
