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Outlook: A spy in the family

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Peter Keup (right) and his brother as children

24/11/2020 GMT

A spy in the family

BBC World Service - Outlook, A spy in the family

I was betrayed to the East German secret police

Peter Keup was a ballroom dancer from East Germany who was imprisoned for trying to escape to the West in the 1980s. He later discovered a betrayal at the heart of his family.

Peter Keup's family was shaped by the division of West and East Germany after the Second World War. He grew up in the East, cut off from relatives across the border. But when Peter’s parents applied for a visa to move West, they were condemned as traitors - he was kicked out of high school and banned from his sports clubs. He found a new passion in ballroom dancing, but when the state tried to stop this too he made the dangerous decision to escape East Germany illegally. He was caught and put in solitary confinement. It was only decades later that he discovered a betrayal at the heart of his family.

Picture: Peter Keup (right) and his brother as children
Credit: Photo courtesy of Peter Keup

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