The Cold War was a time of great tension and fear in many parts of the world. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in an epic struggle for control of the world and, as a result, many smaller countries became proxies and were torn apart. Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan were just some of the countries that the communist United Soviet Socialist Republic and the democratic-capitalist United States of America fought over in order to forward their agendas.
Although the war never came directly to the United States or the Soviet Union, there was a chance that either side would launch their large cache of intercontinental ballistic missiles. It was also possible that tensions in one of the proxy wars could escalate and lead to a large-scale conventional war.
The rhetoric by politicians on both sides didn’t help either.
In a now-famous 1983 speech, American President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” that he wanted to bring down. Reagan’s strategy to defeat the Soviet Union was to outspend them in military investments and to continue to support pro-American proxies in places like Central America. Still, the Soviets were able to meet the American challenge. Even after reformer Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the USSR in 1985, the situation continued.
But then, on May 28, 1987, an eighteen-year-old German amateur pilot named Mathias Rust changed everything when he literally flew his small Cessna plane under Soviet radars and landed in central Moscow near Red Square.
Mathias Rust wasn’t very different from any other kid from West Germany, or the West in general, for that matter. He enjoyed music and hanging out with his friends, and didn’t really think too much about long-term plans. Rust also wasn’t very political. But he was concerned with the Cold War, which was a very real thing for Germans at that time.
Many German families were broken up when the country was partitioned into a democratic West Germany and a communist East Germany, and many Germans were later killed trying to escape the East.
All of this affected Rust very much as he grew up in Wedel, West Germany. He was also deeply moved by his grandparents’ generation, who lost everything in World War II. So, Rust decided that he wanted to make a major statement about the Cold War, but he just didn’t know how.
Until early 1987.
Rust had begun taking flying lessons that year and had logged about fifty hours of flying time when he decided to use that knowledge to make a bold statement to the world. He flew a small Cessna to Iceland and Norway before heading to Helsinki, Finland. From Helsinki, instead of heading south back to West Germany, Rust made the fateful and dangerous decision to fly into Soviet airspace. Remember, this was during the Cold War, so flying unauthorized into Soviet airspace could have been viewed as an act of war. Rust made the situation even more precarious when he ignored all radio contact with Soviet officials and flew low to the ground to avoid radar.
He also had the unexpected help of the Soviet military.
Soviet anti-aircraft batteries on the ground and fighter aircraft in the sky made contact with him on numerous occasions but would lose him before being given permission to engage. Rust kept plodding along in his Cessna until he made it to central Moscow, where he landed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge near Red Square. Tourists and locals alike were astonished by the situation, even more so when they learned Rust was from West Germany.
Rust was promptly arrested, tried, and convicted of a host of charges. He was given a four-year prison sentence but was released on August 3, 1988, after serving just over a year.
By the time Mathias Rust was released from prison, the geopolitical situation had changed radically. The Soviets were pulling out of Afghanistan, the United States had reduced its presence in Central America, and summits were being regularly held between Soviet and American leaders.
It was clear to people around the world that the Cold War was coming to an end.
And many historians and military analysists believe Mathias Rust played no small part in the matter. His flight to Moscow exposed fundamental problems in the Soviet air defense system and led to hundreds of military officers losing their jobs, the most since the Stalin purges of the 1930s and ’40s.
Many believe that Rust’s flight was little more than a teenager’s prank, albeit a very elaborate one, but Rust contends to this day that he did it to help end the Cold War. Whether he intended to or not, Rust’s flight certainly was a contributing factor in the collapse of the Iron Curtain.