Sigmund Jähn: How the first German cosmonaut outlived his country
August 1978. The Berlin Wall divides the city, the country, and, it seems, the very atmosphere into two irreconcilable parts. Politicians argue, missiles are aimed at each other. And somewhere high up, at an altitude of 350 kilometers, a man is flying. He looks down through the thick quartz glass of the porthole of the Salyut-6 station and sees no walls. Only a thin, glowing blue edge of the Earth. No barbed wire, no checkpoints.
This man was called Sigmund Jähn (in the Soviet press, his last name was often spelled as Jaen). And he went down in history with a very unusual status. The first German in space. But not a citizen of the wealthy FRG with its economic miracle, but a guy from East Germany — a country that simply does not exist on the map today.
A boy from the Saxon forest
He did not fit the image of a bronze superhero at all. You know, there are such people — quiet, thorough, with a slightly guilty smile. Sigmund was born in the tiny Saxon village of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz. The name sounds like a spell from an old German fairy tale. All around are only dense forests, sawmills and the harsh nature of Vogtland. The son of a railway worker and a seamstress. He didn't even dream of the sky.
After school, he went to study as a printer. He typeset fonts, stained his hands with printing ink. And, probably, he would have lived a quiet life among printing presses, if not for the call to the army of the GDR. The National People's Army was building its air force. They needed strong guys from the working class. So Sigmund first sat in the cockpit of an airplane. It turned out — this is his. The machine obeyed his hands as easily as the letters fell into the printing form.
Then there was study in the USSR. Gagarin Academy. Strict selection under the Interkosmos program. The Soviet Union decided to send representatives of the socialist countries into orbit. And when the question arose of who would fly from the GDR — the brilliantly educated engineer Eberhard Köllner or this quiet former printer Jähn — Jähn was chosen. He had not a drop of star fever. Only iron endurance and the ability not to panic when things don't go according to plan.
Seven days that changed everything
August 26, 1978. The Soyuz-U rocket takes off from the Gagarin launch site at Baikonur. In the cabin of the Soyuz-31 spacecraft are two people — experienced Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky and Sigmund Jähn. Overloads press into the bed. Breathing is difficult. But when the engines fall silent and weightlessness sets in, Jähn, according to Bykovsky's memories, simply smiled quietly.
They spent almost eight days in orbit. Jähn was not a tourist — he worked like a dog. He conducted experiments with the growth of crystals in zero gravity, photographed the Earth using the MKF-6 multi-zone camera, created, by the way, at the famous Carl Zeiss factory in the GDR. East Germany wanted to show the world: we are not just the younger brother of the USSR, we make the best optics in the world.
But space is not only beautiful views and scientific triumphs. This is always a risk. And this was written sparingly in the official chronicles. The return to Earth turned out to be cruel. The Soyuz-29 capsule (they returned on another ship) made a hard landing in the Kazakh steppe. The impact was so strong that Jähn suffered a serious spinal injury.
And what did he do? He was silent. He gritted his teeth and smiled at rescuers, politicians, journalists. The East German leadership would not have tolerated news that Soviet technology had crippled their first cosmonaut. The pain remained with him forever, hidden behind official portraits with medals.
Life after the country
Upon returning to his homeland, Sigmund Jähn fell into the meat grinder of state propaganda. He was made an idol. During his lifetime, schools, streets, and pioneer groups were named in his honor. A huge museum was built in his native village. He couldn’t just go out for bread — he became a living monument to socialism. And he hated this pomp. Frankly, he just wanted to fly.
And then came 1989. The Berlin Wall fell. The GDR disappeared. And with it disappeared Jähn's status. The new united Germany initially did not know what to do with the hero of a non-existent country. The GDR army was disbanded, General Jähn was dismissed. For a while, the first German cosmonaut was simply an unemployed pensioner.
Remember the brilliant film "Good Bye, Lenin!"? There, the main character sees a man suspiciously similar to Jähn driving an old taxi. This is a beautiful, poignant metaphor for the shattered hopes of an entire generation. But in reality, everything turned out differently. Sigmund did not drive a taxi. He drove astronauts.
Western space agencies — DLR and ESA — quickly realized: they have a person with unique experience. Who knew Russian space technology better than Jähn? Who could negotiate with the stern engineers in Star City? Sigmund became a bridge between West and East. He prepared astronauts from all over Europe for flights to the Mir station, and then to the ISS. He translated not just from Russian to German. He translated from the language of Soviet cosmonautics into the language of European pragmatism.
He passed away quietly, in the autumn of 2019, at the age of 82. By that time, united Germany had long recognized him as its own. Without the prefixes "eastern" or "socialist". Because when you look at the Earth from an altitude of 350 kilometers, you understand one simple thing: borders exist only on paper. And in heads. And the sky — it's one for everyone.