Photos courtesy International Spy Museum.
Even some of the most knowledgeable automotive enthusiasts will admit ignorance when it comes to East Germany’s most famous automobile, the Trabant; despite the fact that more than 3 million of them were built between 1962 and 1991, very few of them have left the former Eastern Bloc. Through decades of production, these basic two-cylinder, composite-bodied cars came to symbolize Communism and the Cold War, so it’s entirely fitting that Washington, D.C.’s International Spy Museum celebrates them with their Annual Parade of Trabants, billed as the only Trabant rally in the United States.
This year’s seventh annual Parade of Trabants -an event founded by Amanda Ohlke, the Museum’s adult programs director- will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday, November 9th, outside of the Museum at 800 F Street, NW. Commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall, which happened on November 9, 1989, this free outdoor event draws some of the finest original and restored Trabants in North America to Washington.
We spoke with Laura Hicken, the museum’s exhibitions and programs associate, who explained,
We work with some great Trabant collectors and enthusiasts, and people come all over the country. The event is organized by Mike Annen, a Trabant collector and enthusiast from Maryland. He has gathered this great group of drivers from as far away as Oregon and Michigan, and has even brought people over from Europe to lend their expertise. There aren’t many people here who love these little cars, so they’ve banded together to form a community. We see a lot of the same families who come every year with their Trabants, and it’s always exciting to see them putter up.
The owners love to display their cars and talk with people about them, and we also have Museum staff on hand to talk about Trabants, about the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. Mike sets up a little Checkpoint Charlie, and we have boxes that kids decorate with graffiti to represent the Berlin Wall. We built that Berlin wall, and then have a Trabant drive through it to symbolically tear it down. We also have a raffle where the prize is a ride in a Trabant, but we tell people that they have to be willing to help push it back.
This year we’ll be having people vote on their favorite Trabant, so we’ll be giving out trophies; we even have a “hard luck” trophy for the driver who gets trapped on I-95 and needs to be rescued. The winner is usually the shiniest and most brightly colored example- in recent years, we’ve had a bubblegum pink one, but we never know who we’ll have attend. The City of Fairfax Band Association’s German band, Blaskapelle “Alte Kameraden,” performs festive polka and German tunes, and people dance and enjoy the music.
On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had at least 20; some of them didn’t make it under their own power and were dragged into the District, but we had one to represent each year. This year we’re hoping to get 10 to 15 Trabants. It’s a really fun program.”
Even if you aren’t fascinated with Cold War history, the museum’s current exhibit, “Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains,” includes an Aston Martin DB5 and the Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day. And what better way is there to escape than in a cloud of two-stroke smoke…
