Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Mathias Rust-A Teenager Who Changed the World.

On September 4th, 1987, Mathias Rust, a 19 years old amateur German pilot, was found guilty and sentenced to four years in a general-regime labor camp in Soviet Union, because he flew a light commercial plane illegally through the so called iron curtain of Soviet Union and landed near Red Square in Moscow. His action was referred as heroic, reckless, impulsive, and stupid for possibly triggering the World War 3, while some considering him as one of the causes to end the Cold War.

Back in 1980s, it was a critical decade of Cold War between the western world  led by the US and NATO alliances and the communist world led by Soviet Union. World politics settings were full of negotiations on banning nuclear missiles, military confrontations, propaganda, spy, and so on. Berlin wall dividing West and East Germany was still there. It was a period that people was convinced the World War 3 was an imminent threat.

In 1982, 250,000 protestors against nuclear weapons gathered in Bonn, West Germany.   In June 1982, 750,000 protestors in New York marched from UN headquarter to Central Park to call for a Nuclear Freeze. A missile defense system was installed in Western Europe and the US launched a Strategic Defense Initiative aka a  Star Wars program, which people did not believe that it would be a full proof method for nuclear missiles. President Reagan branded Soviet Union as an Evil Empire in one of his speeches, while Soviet Union accidentally shot down a Korean Airline Flight 007. Soviet Union was also on the perception that the Western world planned a full force attack on them.

In October of 1986, the Reykjavik Summit was held between US President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland to ban ballistic missiles. The talk was collapsed in the last minute, which caused widely disappointment in global communities.

From the tension of nuclear war threat and the failure of Reykjavik Summit, this drove a teenager Mathias Rust to take a matter to his hands and plotted an unthinkable mission. On May 28th, 1987, Mathias Rust flew a light commercial plane from Finland to Moscow. His plane was tracked by Soviet air defense system and interceptors several times, but never got authorized to shoot down. Then, his plane was mistakenly for a friendly aircraft. He flew through an impregnable iron curtain of Soviet Union and landed safely near Red Square close to Kremlin in Moscow, the capital city of Soviet Union. 




Rust claimed that he tried to build an 'imaginary bridge' between the West and the East. He said that his flight was intended to reduce tension and suspicion on both sides of the Cold War. Rust's flight through an impregnable air-defense system caused great impact on Soviet military and led to the largest shakedown of military reform since 1950s. Gorbachev used this opportunity to remove hundreds of his opponents in the Soviet military. It put a stain on the prestige of Soviet military, which helping put an end to the Cold War in not many years afterwards.

After his landing in Moscow, he stood trials on September 2nd, 1987 and was sentenced for a four year in a general regime labor prison for hooliganism, violation of aviation law and Soviet's border. However, he was not sent to the labor camp. He was kept in a high security temporary detention facility in Moscow.

In December 1987, two months after his trial, President Reagan and President Gorbachev signed treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. Not so long afterwards, Supreme Soviet ordered an early release on Rust in August 1988 to show a goodwill gesture to the west.

Rust returned to West Germany with a great deal of media attention. The journalist called him a psychological unstable and unworldly in a dangerous manner. Rust's later life had several issues and he appeared to live a fragmented life. He got convicted on a couple of occasions. However, in the popular culture, Mathias Rust was remembered as the teenager who flew through a supposedly impregnable air defense system of Soviet Union, which led to a major restructuring in Soviet military and the end of the Cold War in 1991.

No comments:

Post a Comment