Word: german
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...searchlights swept menacingly over the heavily guarded border between East and West Germany, a raggedy patchwork balloon, traveling at a leisurely 10 to 15 knots, floated across the wall of fortifications, minefields, self-firing explosives and guard towers. Minutes later, the bizarre craft crash-landed on West German soil. East Germans were aboard: Mechanic Hans Peter Strelczyk, Bricklayer Gunter Wetzel, their wives and four children. Once again, human ingenuity and the will to freedom had prevailed over Communist East Germany's determination to immure its citizens behind the most formidable frontier in history...
Ironically, the dramatic escape had been inspired by an East German television program on the history of ballooning. A onetime aircraft mechanic who had long been looking for a way to escape from his homeland, Strelczyk immediately set out to build a hot-air balloon in accordance with the principles established by France's pioneering Montgolfier brothers in the 1780s. Strelczyk and his friend Wetzel built a cast-iron platform with posts at the corners for handholds and rope anchors. Four propane cooking-gas cylinders were fastened to the center. Their wives stitched up a balloon...
...Administration showed little concern about the gold boom. As long as gold buyers were not singling out dollars for heavy selling, the fever was viewed as a monetary nonevent. But this complacency faded rapidly late last week when the greenback plunged 2% in just one day against the West German mark, to the lowest it has been since last October. The weakness caught Washington unprepared. Said one Treasury official: "There simply isn't the mental horsepower in the White House to deal with this kind of problem. They are preoccupied with Ham Jordan snorting coke...
...running up prices, and the market itself abounds with rumors. Last week's scuttlebutt had it that a single Saudi investor was looking to buy a ton of gold worth about $12 million, and the market was being dominated by just a few large purchasers-including one unidentified German buyer and an unknown Canadian industrialist. About all that is certain is that small investors are now joining in the gold action...
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