The Muscovites can't believe their eyes:a German sports plane is circling over Red Square, within reach. It's May 28, 1987 and the world has a new sensation. 18-year-old Mathias Rust from Wedel managed to penetrate unhindered to the heart of communism. An hour after landing on a bridge near Red Square, Moscow's police chief pulls up.
Mathias Rust remembers the scenes after the legendary landing well:"The police chief wanted to see my ID. He looked through the passport and said:'There's no visa in it! Why didn't you apply?' I wonder what he would have done if I had proposed that I fly to Moscow on a plane? He would have turned it down. But I wanted to promote peace, to open a new chapter in the peace book."
Help for the superpowers
When Reagan and Gorbachev's disarmament negotiations collapsed in Reykjavik in 1986, Mathias Rust knew:The superpowers need help - his help. Inspired by the intergalactic science fiction hero Perry Rhodan, the teenager draws up a peace plan. He definitely wants to discuss this with the head of the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev.
With this Cessna, the hobby pilot flew over Red Square in Moscow.In May 1987 Rust started the "Mission Red Square". He sticks the photo of his cocker spaniel Florian on the dashboard of the Cessna. Officially, he is deregistering from the "Aero-Club Hamburg" for a two-week trip to Scandinavia. A flying visit to Reykjavik, one to Helsinki, then it's off to Moscow. Shortly before the Soviet border, he puts on his motorcycle helmet. Thus equipped, he hopes to survive a kill. It was actually a suicide mission, but Rust had a plan:"I climbed to an altitude of about 700 meters at the time, so it wasn't a low-level flight. I deliberately chose this altitude because I wanted the Soviet defense system to catch me from the start."
Lost on radar
The Soviet air defenses immediately captured the Cessna. Jet fighters take off, wait for an order and, when it doesn't come, turn away again. A coincidence, as the former television journalist Alexander Galkin says today:"The fact that the Cessna was registered at the beginning and then lost again was due to a chain of unfortunate coincidences that day. On the Helsinki-Moscow flight route crashed at the same time as Rust a transport plane took off that way, a 'Tupolev 95'. Rescue workers flew to the scene of the accident, lots of helicopters moved up and down, and Rust got lost between these points on the radar."
Where is this Red Square?
Mathias Rust doesn't notice any of this, he has a mission and his goal in mind - at least almost:"It was a pleasant feeling to have come closer to the goal. And now it was just a matter of finding the place. I I actually thought it would be easier. I had my maps and pictures with me. But then I saw this huge city and I thought:'My God, where is this Red Square?' It took me over half an hour to actually find it."
From the plane affair to the state affair
Writer Vladimir Kaminer remembers the incident.Gorbachev uses the embarrassment of the air defense for his reform policy. Now he can break the decades-old power of the military hardliners. Ironically, Gorbachev punished them for not reacting harshly. The plane affair becomes a state affair. Author Wladimir Kaminer was stationed in the second of three Moscow defense rings in 1987 and remembers the consequences:"Our whole ring was actually labeled as a failure ring. We all had to leave. But because we were the only ones who had the necessary training , who had the necessary knowledge of the technical equipment, it was difficult to swap us for Uzbek or Tajik colleagues. But it became much stricter after Rust landed. And the head of our command center in the main bunker even shot himself. A lot of people did that their own failures."
Not only the secretary of defense and his deputies have to go, a total of 2,000 senior officers lose their jobs because of a teenager.
"I wouldn't do that again"
Rust, who initiated this "clean-up operation," is later in Lefortovo prison, Moscow's top address for "political criminals" and western spies. The Supreme Court sentenced him to four years in prison. But after 432 days he is released. The hoped-for meeting with Gorbachev never materializes. He goes straight from prison to the plane, where the journalists are waiting for him.
Insecure and shy, Rust is anything but a great hero. Today he sees his action in a different light. Would he have that courage again? "If I had known what would develop from this, I wouldn't dare do it again. You really have to do that without knowing the consequences and the further development of a story. But from today's perspective, I would say I wouldn't bring it," he said in an interview in 2012.
In 1987 he was an important cog in the mechanism of perestroika. Without his flight it would probably have taken longer for the "Iron Curtain" to fall. Incidentally, the legendary "Cessna 172" has become an attraction in the Technikmuseum Berlin.