Page "RAF Gatow" Paragraph 25

A Signals Unit ( 26SU ) was also based at RAF Gatow and on the Teufelsberg in the Grunewald.

26SU was a specialist Signals Intelligence unit operated by the RAF on behalf of GCHQ Cheltenham tasked with monitoring Warsaw Pact military communications over E. Germany and Poland.

On 15 July 1987, a young East German, Thomas Krüger, defected by flying a Zlin Z-42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik ( GST – an East German paramilitary training organisation ) to RAF Gatow from Schönhagen near Trebbin, in the Teltow-Fläming district of Brandenburg.

His first words to the RAF Police were a request for political asylum.

He was handed over to the civil authorities and received West German citizenship.

His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans ( by road ) by RAF station flight personnel, complete with humorous slogans painted on by RAF Airman such as " Wish you were here ", " Come back soon " and the flying control surfaces lock bore the message " remove before the next escape ".

DDR-WOH is still flying today, but since 1991 under the different registration D-EWOH.