Speaker 1: West Germany was experiencing seasonally cool autumn weather in October
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. It would only be another four years
Speaker 1: before the fall of the Berlin War, but for anyone
Speaker 1: living at the time, this was still as inconceivable as
Speaker 1: a future of social media or New York without the
Speaker 1: Twin Towers on those many gray and gloomy days that
Speaker 1: signaled the approach of winter that year. For citizens of
Speaker 1: both East and West Germany, the Cold War was very
Speaker 1: much in operation in West Germany. This could be seen
Speaker 1: most starkly in the numerous acts of domestic terror that
Speaker 1: were perpetrated there in the decade leading up to the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall's demise. The forefront of this activity was the
Speaker 1: Red Army faction, also known as the Bader Meinhoff Gang,
Speaker 1: named after two of the group's early leaders, Andrea Spada
Speaker 1: and Ulrika Meinhoff. The faction was formed out of radical
Speaker 1: elements from the nineteen sixties German university protest movement as
Speaker 1: a reaction to the post war political landscape. Chief among
Speaker 1: their concerns was the failure of the West German political
Speaker 1: system to completely expunge itself of former supporters of Adolf Hitler.
Speaker 1: And what they viewed as the ever expanding and unchecked
Speaker 1: imperialist approach of the United States government. Using funds gained
Speaker 1: from bank robberies, the group engaged in numerous violent activities
Speaker 1: focused mainly on West German corporations and the people who
Speaker 1: worked for them, as well as u S military installations
Speaker 1: and personnel, killing thirty people in the process. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: East Germany, it was the machinations of the uber vigilant
Speaker 1: Ministry of State Security, also known as the Stazi, who
Speaker 1: perhaps most struck fear into its citizens with its ceaseless
Speaker 1: and brutal efforts to sniff out any opposition to the
Speaker 1: country's ostensibly communist government. All in all, it was a
Speaker 1: dark and unsettling time for citizens of both Germanys, framed
Speaker 1: by an ever present atmosphere of violence and paranoia. And
Speaker 1: it was in the shadow of all that that one
Speaker 1: morning in October nineteen eighty four, in Anshausen, a small
Speaker 1: town about thirty five miles east of Bonn in West Germany,
Speaker 1: thirty four year old gunts Stohl was stirred in front
Speaker 1: of his bathroom mirror, contemplating the face that were staring
Speaker 1: back at him. What he saw was dark hair swept
Speaker 1: to one side to conceal his slightly receding hairline, a broad,
Speaker 1: dark mustache under heavy eyebrows, and a dark goatee beard.
Speaker 1: Unbeknownst to him, this very face was shortly to become
Speaker 1: the subject of one of the strangest and most cryptic
Speaker 1: unexplained deaths in recent German history. You're listening to unexplained
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard mc lean smith. By the time late
Speaker 1: October had arrived, Gunta Stall had been unemployed for several months,
Speaker 1: and with the autumn nights drawing in fast, it was
Speaker 1: a difficult time to be out of work. In fact,
Speaker 1: the situation had been getting to Stall a little more
Speaker 1: than he'd care to admit. His hands had developed a
Speaker 1: slight tremble, and he couldn't seem to focus on any
Speaker 1: sort of routine. As the days rolled by and Stoll's
Speaker 1: attempts to find a job went nowhere, he seemed only
Speaker 1: to become more and more anxious. Stoll had worked as
Speaker 1: a food engineer at a local factory before losing his
Speaker 1: job a few months earlier. It was a specialist profession,
Speaker 1: and openings for someone with his particular skills were thin
Speaker 1: on the ground as such. Stoll's wife was well aware
Speaker 1: that her husband was unlikely to find work straight away,
Speaker 1: but she'd become alarmed at just how much of an
Speaker 1: effect it was having on him. As he became increasingly
Speaker 1: agitated and unusually nervous. She wondered if, perhaps or the
Speaker 1: TV he was consuming now he didn't have a regular
Speaker 1: day job to go to with its endless reports of
Speaker 1: domestic terror, kidnappings and killings, was beginning to weigh on
Speaker 1: his mind. But it was more than that. Stoll, it seemed,
Speaker 1: was becoming paranoid. Every now and then, his wife would
Speaker 1: catch him glancing furtively out of the window. Other times
Speaker 1: she'd hear him muttering to himself from outside a room,
Speaker 1: only for him to stop the moment she walked in.
Speaker 1: Whenever he went out, she watched on quietly from the
Speaker 1: window as he pulled up the collar of his coat,
Speaker 1: then quickly scanned all around him before getting into his
Speaker 1: pale colored Volkswagen Golf, And when he drove off, he
Speaker 1: would do so slump down low in the driving seat,
Speaker 1: as if trying to avoid being seen. When Stall's paranoia
Speaker 1: seemed to take a turn for the worse, it started
Speaker 1: one evening over dinner, when Gunter's wife asked him why
Speaker 1: exactly he'd been peering out into the street that day
Speaker 1: from behind the curtains, it was, he said, simply because
Speaker 1: of them. When she asked who they were, Staal went
Speaker 1: silent for a moment, refusing to answer the question until
Speaker 1: finally he spoke again. They, he said, were on his trail.
Speaker 1: It was a few evenings later when Gunter's wife found
Speaker 1: him in their bedroom pacing up and down. She asked
Speaker 1: him once more to explain what was wrong, but again
Speaker 1: Stall offered only that they were planning to do something
Speaker 1: to him. A few days later, and he had become
Speaker 1: convinced that they were in fact out to kill him.
Speaker 1: For Stal's wife, it was becoming unbearable. Not convinced that
Speaker 1: there really was a they at all, she was left
Speaker 1: with the sad realization that her husband was most likely
Speaker 1: struggling with a severe psychiatric illness for which she was
Speaker 1: not equipped to deal with. On Thursday, October twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: Stall was once again at home, where he'd been or day,
Speaker 1: Barely able to sit still. By late evening, he was
Speaker 1: sat in an armchair in his bedroom, still muttering to
Speaker 1: himself when his wife joined him. The pair spoke for
Speaker 1: a moment before Stall went back to his now usual
Speaker 1: nervous worrying. It was shortly for eleven p m when
Speaker 1: he suddenly leaped to his feet and shouted, yet get
Speaker 1: mea ein Lichtoff. Its literal translation to English would be
Speaker 1: something like now a light comes on, but perhaps now
Speaker 1: I've got it is a better reflection of its meaning.
Speaker 1: Stoll's wife could only watch on with alarm as her
Speaker 1: husband took a sheet of scrap paper, sat down at
Speaker 1: the bedroom dressing table, and proceeded to scribble something on it.
Speaker 1: When he'd finished, there appeared to be six characters written
Speaker 1: down on the paper. The first two seemed to be
Speaker 1: the capital letters Y and oh, followed by a third
Speaker 1: letter which looked like a capital G but could also
Speaker 1: have been a six, followed by an apostrophe. Then three
Speaker 1: more letters T, Z and E, also in capitals. Together
Speaker 1: if it was indeed a G and not a six,
Speaker 1: they spelled the apparently nonsensical word yogxy. Stoll's wife looked
Speaker 1: on as Gunter stared hard at the cryptic characters for
Speaker 1: a moment before proceeding to cross them out one by
Speaker 1: one then he leapt up once more, dashed out of
Speaker 1: the room and tore off down the stairs. Where are
Speaker 1: you going so late? Shouted his wife after him, as
Speaker 1: Stoll grabbed his coat and keys. Just to the pub
Speaker 1: for a drink, he replied, before swiftly opening the door
Speaker 1: and rushing out into the street. Missus Stall watched on
Speaker 1: from the bedroom window as Gunter backed his car down
Speaker 1: the driveway, turned onto the road and was swallowed up
Speaker 1: by the night. It was the last time she would
Speaker 1: see her husband alive. Later that night, Stall was witnessed
Speaker 1: at his favorite pub in neighboring Wilnsdorf, a former iron
Speaker 1: mining town about three and a half mile south of Anshausen.
Speaker 1: It was a quiet Thursday evening in the Willnsdorf bar.
Speaker 1: A few regulars chatted quietly and sipped their drinks. Ordinarily,
Speaker 1: they would barely pay attention to Stall, other than to
Speaker 1: nod a brief greeting. He was a regular there who
Speaker 1: tended to keep himself to himself, except that night. There
Speaker 1: was something undeniably odd about him, which drew many concerned
Speaker 1: gazes from his fellow drinkers. Just as he had been
Speaker 1: at home for a good few weeks now he seemed restless, agitated,
Speaker 1: and preoccupied. The one thing he wasn't, however, according to
Speaker 1: all who saw there that night, was drunk. Stall did
Speaker 1: order a beer, which the bartender poured for him, but
Speaker 1: before he could take a sip, without any warning, he
Speaker 1: collapsed to the ground, hitting and injuring his face as
Speaker 1: he fell, Having seemingly lost consciousness, The customers and the
Speaker 1: bartender helped him to his feet and suggested he rest
Speaker 1: a moment while they fetched the first aid kit to
Speaker 1: tend to the deep gash on his face, but Stall
Speaker 1: adamantly refused all help. Instead, he simply paid for his
Speaker 1: drink and left, before climbing unsteadily into his car and
Speaker 1: driving off once again into the chilly night. At roughly
Speaker 1: the same time, seven miles south of Wilsdorf, in the
Speaker 1: small country town of heiger Sealbach, the elderly eerner Helfritz
Speaker 1: was struggling to get to sleep. Despite going to bed early,
Speaker 1: she'd so far only managed to doze on and off.
Speaker 1: She was finally drifting off to sleep when she became
Speaker 1: vaguely aware of the sound of a car drawing up
Speaker 1: outside her house. This was followed moments later by a
Speaker 1: flurry of bangs at her front door. Snapping awake. Helfritz
Speaker 1: somewhat nervously alled herself out of bed and with some
Speaker 1: trepidation made her way to the front door as a
Speaker 1: man shouted out to her from behind it. Alfritz relaxed
Speaker 1: a little when she recognized the voice as that of
Speaker 1: Gunter Stoll. Helfritz had known Stol all his life, having
Speaker 1: been a childhood friend of his mother. However, she soon
Speaker 1: became alarmed again when she listened closer to what Gunter
Speaker 1: was saying. Stoll sounded frightened and was begging to be
Speaker 1: let in, telling her that a horrible incident was about
Speaker 1: to occur. Helfritz was concerned about Stoll, but given that
Speaker 1: it was one a m. And how unhinged he sounded,
Speaker 1: she refused to open the door, telling him to go
Speaker 1: to his parents place instead, which was only a few
Speaker 1: minutes drive away. Much to her relief, Stall stopped shouting
Speaker 1: and walked away at three a m. Just two hours
Speaker 1: after Stoll had turned up at Erna Helfritz's home about
Speaker 1: seventy miles away to the north. The traffic was light
Speaker 1: on Autobahn A forty five as the occasional car and
Speaker 1: commercial lorry zipped in and out of the small spots
Speaker 1: of light cast by the motorway lamps. Two drivers in
Speaker 1: the cab of a truck traveling south were listening to
Speaker 1: the radio as they approached Exit thirteen, the off ramp
Speaker 1: for the city of Hargansud, when they spotted a pale
Speaker 1: colored Volkswagen Golf lying in a ditch by the side
Speaker 1: of the southbound carriageway that looked to be badly damaged,
Speaker 1: according to their statements. Later, there was a man in
Speaker 1: a light colored jacket there too, walking around the car,
Speaker 1: seemingly inspecting the inside of it, but as the lorry
Speaker 1: pulled up to the wreckage, the man vanished into the night.
Speaker 1: Having parked up, one of the lorry drivers hurried to
Speaker 1: a nearby emergency phone to call for an ambulance, while
Speaker 1: the other, after taking a few deep breaths to steady
Speaker 1: his nerves, cautiously approached the crashed car. As the truck
Speaker 1: driver drew closer to the smashed up vehicle, he could
Speaker 1: see that the front end of it was crushed inwards
Speaker 1: and its windscreen had been completely smashed. The back tailgate
Speaker 1: was up and the passenger side door was also hanging open.
Speaker 1: Just then, his colleague returned to say an ambulance was
Speaker 1: on the way, and so together they then peered inside
Speaker 1: the wrecked vehicle. There, lying crumpled over in the passenger seat,
Speaker 1: was the badly battered and strangely incomprehensibly naked body of
Speaker 1: a man with thinning dark hair, a black mustache, and
Speaker 1: goateee beard. Even though they were both untrained in emergency
Speaker 1: scene response, it was clear the naked man had severe
Speaker 1: injuries on several parts of his body. Much to their relief,
Speaker 1: he was still alive, but only just conscious and barely
Speaker 1: clinging on to life. As they waited for the ambulance
Speaker 1: to arrive, the two drivers tried to keep the man talking,
Speaker 1: comforting him as best they could. Did he remember what happened?
Speaker 1: They asked? Why wasn't he wearing any clothes? The man
Speaker 1: fought to find the words, then eventually, in a shaky
Speaker 1: and raspy voice, explained that four other men had been
Speaker 1: with him in the car before he'd crashed. The men
Speaker 1: had apparently beaten him up before running away and leaving
Speaker 1: him there. When asked if he knew the men, the
Speaker 1: man said no. They were complete strangers. An ambulance arrived
Speaker 1: on the scene soon after, and emergency workers carefully extracted
Speaker 1: the naked man from the wreckage. It was, of course,
Speaker 1: gun to Stall. Sadly, though he was alive when he
Speaker 1: was taken away in the ambulance, he died en route
Speaker 1: to the hospital shortly after. With the circumstances of Stoll's
Speaker 1: death and his apparent crash being so odd, the police
Speaker 1: quickly decided to make the case a criminal investigation. The
Speaker 1: following day, the two truck drivers were questioned at the
Speaker 1: local police station, having first been put into separate rooms
Speaker 1: to check if their story is tallied. Both drivers testified
Speaker 1: to having seen a man in a bright or white
Speaker 1: jacket walking around the crashed car as they arrived on
Speaker 1: the scene, but the man was gone by the time
Speaker 1: they parked up. Other witnesses who were driving that stretch
Speaker 1: of road at the same time also spoke of seeing
Speaker 1: someone they described as possibly a hitchhiker in a bright
Speaker 1: or white coat where Stoll's wrecked car was found. Curiously,
Speaker 1: some witnesses described the white coat as looking like a
Speaker 1: lab coat. There were also onlooker reports of a pickup
Speaker 1: truck near exit thirteen, heading towards Frankfort immediately after the
Speaker 1: vehicle crashed. However, this vehicle was never traced. As more
Speaker 1: and more facts were uncovered, it seemed the mystery only deepened.
Speaker 1: No evidence of the mysterious passengers Stole claimed to were
Speaker 1: with him, nor his missing clothes could be found, and
Speaker 1: there were no leads on the white coated stranger spotted
Speaker 1: at the scene either. The official cause of death was
Speaker 1: pronounced as vehicular manslo caused under suspicious circumstances, and then
Speaker 1: came Stall's autopsy. Firstly, it showed somewhat unexpectedly that Stoll's
Speaker 1: injuries had not been sustained from inside his own car,
Speaker 1: but elsewhere, With the likely possibility that he'd been struck
Speaker 1: outside his vehicle by another car before somehow ending up
Speaker 1: back inside the Volkswagen. Police surmised that having somehow been
Speaker 1: run over, Stoll was then deliberately positioned in the passenger
Speaker 1: seat of his own car before it was then driven
Speaker 1: or pushed into the ditch where it was found. This, again,
Speaker 1: according to the police, was most likely done to hide
Speaker 1: the evidence of how, where, and by whose hand he'd
Speaker 1: received his fatal injuries. In subsequent questioning, Stoll's distraught wife
Speaker 1: told the police that her husband had made some solo
Speaker 1: holiday trips to the Netherlands over the previous couple of years.
Speaker 1: The police's immediate suspicion was that Gunter had been involved
Speaker 1: with drug dealing, but further investigations failed to reveal anything incriminating.
Speaker 1: As the investigation wore on, police profiled around twelve hundred
Speaker 1: potential suspects, but neither the identity of the man in
Speaker 1: the bright or white jacket or the four people that
Speaker 1: Stole claimed were with him just before he died could
Speaker 1: be ascertained. As for the location of where he'd supposedly
Speaker 1: first been injured, that too remained elusive. As news of
Speaker 1: what became known as the Auto Barn riddle hit the
Speaker 1: press and gained notoriety in the West German media and beyond,
Speaker 1: a plethora of theories began to circulate around Stoll's death.
Speaker 1: With all the strange details, the fact that he'd spoken
Speaker 1: repeatedly about how he was in danger in the lead
Speaker 1: up to the fatal incident began to seem less like
Speaker 1: paranoia and more like a distinct possibility. Then something new
Speaker 1: came to light. It was during further questioning by the police,
Speaker 1: while Stoll's wife detailed the extent of his ever increasing
Speaker 1: paranoia that she remembered the mysterious note he'd written the
Speaker 1: night of his death. Having thought nothing of it at
Speaker 1: the time. Stoll's wife had thrown the note away, but
Speaker 1: was adamant she could remember it vividly. On it was
Speaker 1: written the word yoxey, she said, give or take, the
Speaker 1: G being a six or not. The revelation of this
Speaker 1: mysterious code inevitably led to even more public speculation about
Speaker 1: the case. What on earth could it mean? People wondered,
Speaker 1: as all manner of theories were put forward. What if
Speaker 1: it didn't say yoggze at all, but the O was
Speaker 1: in fact a zero, and the letter Z actually the
Speaker 1: number two, And if the third letter was indeed the
Speaker 1: number six, could it be a vehicle license plate? Some
Speaker 1: wandered the license plate of a car that had been
Speaker 1: following him, only to later run him over. Perhaps others
Speaker 1: suggested the characters were linked to a Romanian radio station,
Speaker 1: the call sign of which was exactly YO six t ze.
Speaker 1: There are no mentions of what the police made of
Speaker 1: the license plate theory, but any connection between the note
Speaker 1: and the Romanian radio station were found to have been
Speaker 1: merely coincidental, with police soon hitting a dead end with it.
Speaker 1: All cryptographers were brought in to analyze the mysterious characters,
Speaker 1: they too hit a dead end. In the years since
Speaker 1: Gunter Stoll's beguiling death, many more theories have been put
Speaker 1: forward to try and make sense of it. Since Stoll
Speaker 1: was a food engineer, some amateur sleuths have speculated that
Speaker 1: the letters yog tze are an anagram for the word psygote,
Speaker 1: the scientific term for the earliest developmental stage of a
Speaker 1: fertilized egg, and that Stol had unwittingly discovered evidence of
Speaker 1: some sort of secret genetic engineering experiment. Was the man
Speaker 1: in the white coat seen leaving the crash site, according
Speaker 1: to some, a scientist from a research laboratory, Or perhaps,
Speaker 1: rather than being an unwitting innocent said others, was Stoll
Speaker 1: actually an active agent deeply entangled within the clandestine world
Speaker 1: of industrial espionage working for the East German government. Perhaps
Speaker 1: in his capacity as a food engineer, Stohl had been
Speaker 1: privy to some secret food ingredient or food modification program
Speaker 1: knowledge which he was trying to smuggle out to the
Speaker 1: other side. What if the first three letters y O
Speaker 1: G referred to yogurt, thought some, although in German this
Speaker 1: would be spelt with a jay or yacht as it
Speaker 1: is called, and not a y. Those following this line
Speaker 1: of thought contend that the letters t ze might also
Speaker 1: denote a type of secret flavoring found in yogurt that
Speaker 1: Stoll was working with. These might seem fanciful ideas to
Speaker 1: think it now, but throughout the Cold War, including well
Speaker 1: into the nineteen eighties, the East German government at a
Speaker 1: highly developed industrial espionage program. At the time of Stoll's death,
Speaker 1: there were thought of being thousands of operatives in West
Speaker 1: Germany engaged exclusively in industrial espionage for the East. Such
Speaker 1: spying was an attractive option to some West Germans struggling
Speaker 1: with their finances. Hans Raider was one prominent example. A
Speaker 1: physicist and former member of the National German Socialist Workers Party,
Speaker 1: Raider was deep in debt and struggling to provide for
Speaker 1: his family when he was recruited by the East German
Speaker 1: government during the nineteen fifties. An employee at a West
Speaker 1: German electronics firm, Raider's work put him in contact with
Speaker 1: detailed information about a range of technologies the company was developing.
Speaker 1: In exchange for monthly payoffs, Raider stole key files from
Speaker 1: his employer and passed them on to East German agents
Speaker 1: Between nineteen fifty seven to nineteen eighty five. Raider's side
Speaker 1: hustle spying career delivered staggering amounts of material into the
Speaker 1: hands of the Stazi, and he was never caught. It
Speaker 1: all certainly paints Stole's strange behaviour in the lead up
Speaker 1: to his death in a slightly more complicated light. Or
Speaker 1: did gun to Stall simply suffer a psychotic breakdown caused
Speaker 1: by the increasing mental stress and depression of unemployment. In
Speaker 1: the end, with it being close to forty years since
Speaker 1: Stoll's death, it's unlikely will ever learn the truth of
Speaker 1: what exactly happened to him. Even the cryptic message often
Speaker 1: touted as the only solid clu from the case was
Speaker 1: in fact delivered second hand from his wife's memory, something
Speaker 1: routinely found to be fallible. Every year the case is
Speaker 1: re examined by the Attorney General's Office in the hopes
Speaker 1: of finally solving the mystery, and as its resurfaces in
Speaker 1: turn in the German public imagination, the amateur sleuths take
Speaker 1: another stab at finally cracking the case, but it remains
Speaker 1: to this day unexplained. This episode was written by Diane Hope.
Speaker 1: Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard
Speaker 1: mclin Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music,
Speaker 1: are also produced by Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book
Speaker 1: and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before been featured
Speaker 1: on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You
Speaker 1: can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones, among other bookstores.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts
Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
Speaker 1: to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast
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