Gilbert Ferrey: An American Prisoner in East Berlin, 1961

By Todd DePastino

Gil Ferrey became a minor Cold War cause célèbre in 1961 when he got caught, along with fellow college student Victor Pankey, trying to smuggle a young woman out of East Berlin in the trunk of a Volkswagen Beetle. Gil, who would later serve as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, told his story on our VBC livestream on January 12, 2026. Below is an article about Gil’s…