‘Greatest Escapes With Arturo Castro’ Episode 6: The Plüschow Maneuver

Mental Floss is partnering with FilmNation and iHeartPodcasts to bring you the transcripts for Greatest Escapes, a podcast hosted by Arturo Castro about some of the wildest escape stories across history. In this episode, Billy Magnussen (Game Night, The Franchise) takes some time for a leisurely trip with Arturo to the early 1900s, where they discover the story of Gunther Plüschow, one of the most infamous escapees from World War I. Read all the transcripts here.

Arturo Castro: This is Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you the wildest true escape stories of all time. I’m Arturo Castro and I’m here with the incredibly talented actor with the voice of an absolute angel, Billy Magnussen.

Guys, what a treat we have for you today. We have the one, the only: Billy Magnussen.

Billy Magnussen: What’s up, dude? Bienvenidos!

Arturo: Gracias.

Billy: Todos bien, mi amigo, mi amores.

Arturo: Te amo! So, brother, uh, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I know you’re in Georgia right now, building a house from, from—from the ground up by yourself!

Billy: No renovating. Renovating.

Arturo: No, no, no. You’re building a house by yourself cause you’re impressive. Just f***ing—just admit it.

Billy: With my brothers. Actually—it’s actually with my brothers and my dad, you know, grew up in a carpentry shop, so–

Arturo: Are you—are you renovating a house you grew up in or a house you got in Georgia?

Billy: No, a house I got in Georgia, it’s like close to my parents’ place. So …

Arturo: Oh, nice.

Billy: You know, when I’m—when I’m not, uh, shooting a movie with you, co-starring next to you, uh, you know, I’m building houses, working construction.

Arturo: That’s how you—you’re doing a movie or you’re building a house. That’s what Billy does, a’right?

Billy: That’s it. What else is there to do?

1. Billy’s Escape
2. CHAPTER 1: Bullsh*t Nosedive
3. CHAPTER 2: They Called Me “Dragon Master”
4. CHAPTER 3: International Man of Immediately Fumbling the Bag
5. CHAPTER 4: Escaping into History
6. CHAPTER 5: One and Only
7. Outro
8. Credits

Billy’s Escape

Arturo: Do you have something that you consider to be your greatest escape, brother?

Billy: My biggest real escape was like probably getting away from a life I didn’t wanna live.

Arturo: Oh, wow.

Billy: I would say, like, emotionally and deep. We came from the generation a little bit before social media and sh*t like that, and that—that comparison thing that it causes, or at least it caused me to do, f***ing crushed me. It crushed me. And, like, to detox from that and not do that sh*t has been so helpful.

Arturo: Try—try having the only other well known Guatemalan actor be Oscar Isaac. I mean, every time, every time I did something even semi-cool, my friends would send me like the cover of a GQ with f***ing Oscar Isaac on it. And I was like, “yep, got it, got it, got it.”

Billy: I—there was something about my own trust and like caring for myself that I stopped doing, um, and to like move on—move past that, and escape that black hole of it, that’s been the best escape of my life, to enjoy life again.

Arturo: Thank you for—for being so open with us, man. Um, Did you ever get faced with the like—like, unspoken, “What do you have to complain about?” Not from your family, but from other people?

Billy: Yeah. No, no. Definitely from my family. My—again, I come from most of the majority of dudes that like—you know, it’s my mom and then like four guys, and, uh, that sounds weird. It’s me and my brothers. You know, it’s a bunch of dudes.

Arturo: We just got some guys that I just, uh, built some houses with, a’right?

Billy: Yeah. But you know, they—they would always just: “get your head outta your ass and, and pick yourself up.” Like, “what do you got? Look, it’s f***ing beautiful today. Why don’t you get outside?” It was tough love.

Arturo: OK.

Billy: The escape was just, yeah, saying goodbye to that—that life that wasn’t working anymore. Or that mindset.

Arturo: Mm. Well, brother, listen, thank you so much for, uh, uh, opening up about that. Uh, are you ready for me to tell you, uh, an insane escape, brother?

Billy: Yeah.

Arturo: Let’s rock and roll.

CHAPTER 1: Bullsh*t Nosedive

Arturo: So our story begins with a man named Gunther Plüschow, right? He was this German naval officer in the early 1900s, and honestly, his life was like a whole series of buck wild escapes. Eventually he would even become one of the most famous prisoners of World War I. We’re gonna start in the year before the war started, when Gunther was assigned to a brand new wing of the German military, the Air Force.

So of course, this was when they were first starting to experiment with flying, and it turns out that Gunther was an absolute prodigy. So at the beginning of 1914, Gunther’s story really took off because as hard it is, it is—as it is to believe, Gunther says it only took him three days to learn how to fly. He was like, “ya, I don’t know. I just went up in the air and I stayed there like, boom, came down. It’s very simple.”

Billy: I actually feel like flying is probably very like second nature, like riding a bike, weirdly. I remember doing, um, hang-gliding thing and it was like, “this makes so much … ”—it, like, the mechanics of it really actually works in my head. It’s—and you’re in this, this nothing kind of contraption, you know, it’s just off the, the wind.

Arturo: Right.

Billy: And it was just like, “this seems so simple,” like it’s just–

Arturo: And you’re—simple in what way? You’re just feeling what the air wanted to do and you’re just kinda like, “oh, this is how I can manipulate it.” Right?

Billy: Yeah, you just—it’s like surfing or something, you know, like where you have to—or snowboarding or skiing. You could just feel where the momentum wants to take you. It’s like, you know, little dancing in the air. It makes sense to me.

Arturo: So listen, so the German planes, at that time, they were called “doves,” and they were f***ing janky as hell, right? And they required the pilot to do a lot of pulling on wires and levers to make the wings bend. But Gunther says that not only could he do it after just three days, but he actually passed his flying exam on day five. 

Do you have any prodigy level skills, Billy? Were you immediately proficient at that, uh—what’s it called? The goat carcass throwing race?

Billy: Oh, kok boru? Kok boru?

Arturo: Kok boru, yeah.

Billy: No, definitely not, definitely not. That—that was like showing up—that was like we were the Jamaican bobsled team showing up to like, you know, play kok boru. Kok boru is a game, basically, during the World Nomad Games. It’s like one of the biggest, uh, sports in the -stans, and I was part of the first ever American kok boru team, which is basically hockey, like the same rules of hockey, but you’re on horseback and the ball’s a dead goat carcass and you have to lean off the horse to the ground, pick up the dead goat carcass, and throw it in the other team’s goal. And it was the most aggressive thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Arturo: Oh my God. Is it—uh, is it shaped as a ball? Or is it just like–

Billy: No, no. Right before, right before the game, cut off the head and cut off at the elbows and knees, and there’s sh*t and blood everywhere, dude.

Arturo: Oh my God, no. Oh my God.

Billy: But then the winner gets to eat it.

Arturo: Wow. That’s f***ing insane.

Billy: That is insane.

Arturo: The German Air Force was so impressed with Gunther’s prodigious skills that they wanted to immediately ship him off to the far reaches of the empire. But Gunther must have felt that he wasn’t actually ready, so he made a request before they sent him away: He asked for one more long training flight across Germany, but this time joined by a military observer.

Billy: Yeah.

Arturo: If you’re—Billy, if you’re the observer guy, are you gonna take this f***ing flight with a hot shot young pilot? I’ll be like, “F*** no man. I’m busy avoiding syphilis, man. I don’t wanna die.” I’m like, you know—it’s like 1900, man.

Billy: I just want my schnitzel and some beer.

Arturo: Yeah. “I got polio, dude. I can’t do that.”

Billy: I guess I would do it, though. I’m—I’m that kind of guy, though.

Arturo: You would, you would definitely do it.

Billy: I feel like things in my life always show up. Like if it shows up in front of me, I’m like, “oh, this is the moment I’m doing that now.” You know, it’s–

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah.

Billy: It’s like eating bugs for the first time in, like, Thailand. It just, like, shows up to you and you’re like, “eh, I guess I’m doing this here.”

Arturo: “I’m a bug eater now.” You know, I,—I find that with like weird phobias that I have—like, um, afraid of heights or whatever the f***. But even though I’m afraid of heights, I’ve cliff dived and I’ve skydived and I’ve—you know, cause I’m more afraid of missing out on the experience than I am of my petty little fears, if that makes any sense?

Billy: Exactly, dude, I could not agree with you more. Would you ever actually get your skydiving license?

Arturo: My girlfriend at the time didn’t f***ing know that I was afraid of heights, and she got me a skydiving thing for my birthday, but my birthday is in November and in New York you can’t jump until June. So I had about seven, eight months to think about this f***ing thing, and I was like, “I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna do it.”

Two weeks before there was an accident for a tandem skydiving thing where the parachute didn’t fully deploy. And so the dude landed on his client and vaporized his client and he kind of survived all f***ed up. And I was like, “that’s it. That’s it. I’m not doing it.” And then my writing partner, who is—at the time—who is the softest dude I’ve ever met, he was like, “Oh, skydiving, yeah, I’ve been like four times.” I was like, “there’s no f***ing world in which this motherf***er has gone and I have not gone.”

 Anyway, we go up there. It’s a whole story about how I finally get up there. And they were like, “OK, put your foot outside and you count to three and then we’ll jump.” And I was like, “cool. 1: faint, 2, 3. And I’m like, “I’m already f***ing flying?” I’m like, “wait, what happened to two? What happened?” It was like, you can see the video. It’s just like—I just like nod off for like a second. And, and—and the first f***ing thing is—have you skydived?

Billy: A few times, yeah.

Arturo: OK, so the first thing is your—your brain doesn’t know what the hell is going on, right? And then, so it’s sort of, kind of a—a sensory overload. And the second one is like, “oh my God, I’m flying through the air like a f***ing bird.” And then the third one is like, “please deploy. Please deploy, please deploy.” But I think that everybody should do it at least once in their life.

Billy: What—the scariest, the scariest part was the drive to the airport for me. But like, every time I’ve gone, I find it so peaceful—like, weirdly relaxing, and like—just nothing else in the world matters.

Arturo: It doesn’t feel like that, that—um, what’s it called? The roller coaster pull. It just feels like floating through the air. Also, I would like to shout out to our sponsors Tandem—Tandem Skydiving off Long Island, um. What if we’re just, this is just a paid partnership, like … f***ing for, like, airlines, German Airlines, and—and carcass throwing.

So Gunther got this request approved, right, of somebody coming with him. But that was something that everybody was gonna regret because just about everything that could go wrong went wrong. So, at first they took off in a dense fog [plane sound effect] and Gunther couldn’t see and flew—thank you. That’s—is that a fog sound? Yeah. Oh, that’s a plane sound.

Billy: That’s—I’m pretty sure that’s a lawnmower.

Arturo: That’s a lawn—so, he was, he realized that he was cutting the grass and he flew—he flew purely by compass, right? Cause he couldn’t see anything. And while the military observer guy had his, his life flashing before his eyes. It was the first time flying—it was the guy’s first time flying and he was completely freaked out. It forced them to land in the field and they couldn’t even leave until local farmers cut down trees to open up a runway. 

Also, what are you doing somebody—sending somebody who hasn’t flown to supervise a flight? Right? Like what would they—what would—how would they know what to look for?

Billy: “Uh, we’re still up in the air.”

Arturo: Yeah. Yes. It’s good. We are. We are. “Oh, zis is flying. You’re a big flying boy. Yeah.”

Billy: So wait, so they’re chilling in this town till they cut down the trees to make a run–?

Arturo: They had to land in a field and they couldn’t take off again until farmers came out and cut some of the grass and vines and sh*t so that they could take off again.

Billy: That’s like, awesome. See what happened to humanity like that, where you’re like, “ah, you’re lost. I’ll help you out,” you know?

Arturo: Well listen, Billy, if a f***ing guy landed with a plane in my garden, I’d be like, “yeah, I’m gonna help you get the f*** outta my garden cause this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.” So I don’t know what’s happened to—I don’t know if it’s humanity or it’s, uh, it’s just basically—

Billy: It’s like, “Hey, I, you know, I got—I got some sh*t I gotta get done. Get out.”

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah. “So let’s get—get you out.” So when Gunther finally did launch again, another fog rolled in, and as they flew, Gunther realized that somehow that force landing had split the fuel tank and then the gas was leaking out of the plane. Right? So they ran outta fuel just as they reached their destination. And that was bad enough, but then on the way back—why are they f***ing flying back?

Billy: Same plane?

Arturo: Hey, overlords, it’s gotta be a different plane, right?

Carl: Germany had like four planes at the time. So this was the same plane. Yessir.

Arturo: So that was the same plane? They just patched it up? OK, good. So Gunther says that the only reason that he tried taking off again was because he didn’t know any better at the time. And it was truly a sh*tty call. After a little while, he realized that the storm was too strong and he couldn’t control the plane. So he tried to dive down and land in another field.

I—I love the farmers just looking at him like “Nein! Not again, please. We just finished cutting your sh*t out.”

Billy: “You’re the wurst!”

Arturo: Imagine the military observer, right? Like, he’s just confessing to sh*t, in case this is the last time. He’s like, “I’ve never liked the uniform. I—I said I did, but I didn’t. It’s boxy and it makes me look fat, you know?” And it’s like, “dude, calm down. We’re not gonna die.”

So they came in for the landing, but at [the] last minute, the wind picked up and a gust slammed the plane and flipped it upside down, just as it neared the ground. The plane slammed into the field and smashed forward with the wind and rain slashing them. The flipped plane cut a trench into the turf before crashing to a halt against a high mound.

Not the best first day for our military observer guy. Gunther and his passenger were trapped under the plane as the storm raged on overhead, and as he caught his breath, he realized he was still alive. Right? Gunther felt hot gasoline start pouring down his face.

The observers probably like, “OK, um, I—I’m observing some fuel getting into your mouth,” and Gunther’s like, “you don’t, no need to observe everything,” you know.

This guy was f***ing lucky. So some nearby farmers, again, had actually seen the plane go down. They rushed to the site. They couldn’t lift the plane, so they dug a tunnel underneath it so they could pull out the trapped men.

What has happened to humanity, Billy? Where are people digging tunnels for us these days? Nay. They don’t exist. So Gunther says that at that moment he realized that the mound they had crashed the plane into was actually … a giant pile of manure.

Billy: Fantastic.

Arturo: Yeah. What’s a sh*tty—have you ever had a bad crash?

Billy: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Not like, uh, well–

Arturo: OK. You’re like, “legally, I cannot give you details on it. I, I—I pleaded no contest.”

Billy: No, that I—I’ve always been lucky, let’s just say that—of like getting out of stuff. Like, I’ve been flown from a bike and somehow landed like basically on all fours.

Arturo: You landed like a gymnast, like, like—say, just like doing—doing the hands up in the air. Like, uh, wow.

Billy: Falling rock climbing was the worst probably.

Arturo: What happened in rock climbing? You almost died?

Billy: I fell like—I fell like maybe 50 feet?

Arturo: No.

Billy: And like, it was—but luckily, we were over water, and it was like, there was a step weirdly. So I fell—I fell like 30-something feet halfway down. And when I hit my back, I kicked off away from the wall cause there was rocks, and like, I kicked off far enough to land in water. And so–

Arturo: What? Brother, whoa.

Billy: Yeah, the worst part wasn’t the, the—like, my back and the scars there from all that, it was the poison oak that got into my bloodstream.

Arturo: No.

Billy: So I was like, a scab for the next two weeks.

Arturo: Um, also you’re like, what if you said like, the worst part of it was just—you know, “I—my clothes got wet. That’s really the worst.” I was like, “wow, you really love your clothes.” Well, I’m glad you’re alive, brother.

So Gunther, he says that the plane was smashed up into a tangle of wood, fabric and wire, and it was fully broken apart in three places, and it was completely embedded in soggy sh*t, right? Sorry, soggy poo poo. Somehow Gunther escaped with his life and so did his passenger. He had Billy luck. So this is his escape number one.

[Escape sound]

Billy: OK.

Arturo: OK. Is that—I really hope that happens every time I name his escapes. Can I get that one more time?

[Escape sound]

Yes. Thank you. So, in disgrace, both men took a train back to Gunther’s Navy base to report. Their fellow officers were like, “how’d it go?” You know? And they’re like, “please f*** off.”

Billy: Wait, wait, wait. Let’s go back earlier. So they landed in a field, crashed in a field, and they didn’t just take the train back, they got back up in the air?

Arturo: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They took the train back. So the—they both, both men took a train–

Billy: No, the first time where the–

Arturo: No, they got back up. They got back up in the plane. The first time they crashed into the field. Yeah. They cut him off and they’re like, “OK. Yeah, I think this is good … ”

Billy: And the homeboy that’s just, like, hitchhiking a ride is like, “yeah, I’ll go back up.”

Arturo: I’m saying, I’m just saying that like–

Billy: They could have taken a train?!

Arturo: Yeah, they could have taken a train back, but they just decided not to cause they were like, “maybe this is what flying is. You have to like crash land every now and then,” you know? Uh, I also love that, like—also it must be—there must be some male ego in play in this, right?

He’s like, “I will not go in the f***ing train. Everybody will know we f***ing crashed.” And—and it’s like, “I think everybody knows already. It’s in the news.” So somehow despite this, the Navy still thought that they should send him to China as their special pilot boy or wunderkind, if you will, and somehow Gunther still thought that this was a good idea.

Literally, in his book, he ends the chapter of the crash by saying, “well, duty called.” Sh*t you not. Wow. So many terrible manure puns I’m practicing for when I become a Farmer Dad, you know?

CHAPTER 2: They Called Me “Dragon Master”

Arturo: So why did the German Navy send Gunther to China? Well, at the time, the German Navy had actually seized an entire city on the Chinese coast in 1897, the city of Tsingtao. Huh? Named after the Fantastic Beer? Huh?

Billy: Yeah. Yeah.

Arturo: That was because the German Kaiser was extremely f***ing jealous of his cousins who ruled Russia and England, and they were all taking parts of China for themselves. So you remember when that monarchy across Europe at that point was all like a messed up family affair, you know, and they’re all like—they were all basically like, “no, I want it,” “no, I want it,” you know, that’s really how World War—uh, the First World War happened. 

But how would you, how would your family do at ruling a continent? What do you think? Imagine your family drama, but boosted by, to scale—to scale of a global empire.

Billy: Oh man, I think it would be a good time.

Arturo: Yeah, particularly your brothers sound like, you know, like there’s conflict. They’re like, “just get your head outta your ass. Hey, Russia, just get your head outta ass. All right?”

Billy: “Get your head out of your ass.”

Arturo: “Hey, let’s go build a house, guys, let’s go build some houses.”

Billy: “Build a house. Let’s have a beer. Enjoy ourselves.”

Arturo: So the German Navy put the city under a military dictatorship. So jokes aside, I wonder if it’s related that there’s a beer named after that city cause Germans do love their—their brewing, don’t they.

Billy: It has to.

Arturo: Hey, overlords, is it related?

Carl: Yes, this is when the Germans built the Tsingtao brewery.

Arturo: Ooh.

Billy: Ooh.

Arturo: OK. OK. So I was right. Good for me. So Wunderkind Gunther was one of the Navy officers who was sent to China to be on the lead ship of their Asian Navy squad. Oh, and by the way, he had joined a German military academy at 10 years old. So this was kind of his thing, right. And before he learned to fly, he had already sailed around Tsingtao as a navy officer. In that first trip, he even got himself a tattoo, a dragon that stretched from his left shoulder all the way to his left wrist. 

You got any ink?

Billy: I do.

Arturo: Yeah.

Billy: Yeah.

Arturo: You don’t regret any of it?

Billy: I don’t think you’ve seen me with my clothes off, so.

Arturo: How many do you have?

Billy: Uh, four. All—all I wish I … I wish I didn’t have any of them.

Arturo: But listen. Particularly like that, like early 1900s. It must have been rare to get a big ass f***ing tattoo like that, right?

Billy: I guess, but don’t you—isn’t like ... all the sailors would get tattoos all the time and all that sh*t.

Arturo: I didn’t associate it with German Navy guys, but I guess, you know, you’re on a boat, everything goes, you know. So after his flying lessons and, you know, crashing his plane multiple times, Gunther was headed back to China for his German overlords. He arrived in Tsingtao this time with a plane. Apparently he could fly now, and because of the tattoo, people started calling him Gunther, Dragon Master, or at least that’s what Gunther would tell people. Do you think that’s even true? I love the idea of him like—

Billy: “Call me Dragon Master.”

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. “Hey, hey, Gunther. Gunther. F***ing fine. Hey, Dragon Master.” “Yeah. Yeah, what—you’re calling me?” Oh my God.

Billy: How are you this quick, dude? How are you?

Arturo: Well, my, I, I have my—I have writers in my ear. It’s Tory Smith and Alyssa just going like, OK, and now bits, bits, bits, bits, bits. OK. So.

Together: Unz, unz, unz. Drop that beat! Unz, unz, unz.

Arturo: OK, thank you. OK. But also, OK, so Dragon Master, he’s pushing his nickname on everybody, and this was July of 1914.

So the other thing happening at the end of July in 1914 was that World War I was kicking off. As a matter of fact, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot on the same day that Gunther made his first flight over Tsingtao.

Ah, coincidence? I think not. Where was he? So soon enough, Germany and Russia were scrapping. Apparently while talking with an English girlfriend, Gunther told her that it was fine Germany was fighting Russia because they would never fight England. Ooh, how very wrong he was.

CHAPTER 3: International Man of Immediately Fumbling the Bag

Arturo: So by the fall that year, the Germans in Tsingtao were surrounded, right? A combined army of Japanese and English troops had the city under siege. Did you expect the English to—to show up there? Like it seemed like around that time, English would always go like, “oh, is it subjugation? Yes, please. Yeah.”

Billy: What’s crazy is that, that the—they probably sailed that whole way, like, at that time—like, it’s insane.

Arturo: Yeah, I mean, the, the—the Air Force wasn’t that powerful and their Navy has always been known for being great.

So apparently in the attacks on the city, the Japanese army was extremely careful not to damage the German brewery because f***ing priorities. I respect that. And in the battle, Gunther was the German scout, so he would fly over the city and report what he saw about the Japanese and English troops: Where they were camped, how many there were, things like that. But at first, the soldiers mocked him, saying that while they were fighting on the ground, he was just playing games up in the air. The truth is that Gunther’s information was actually pretty useful, but the insult stung, so he started to beg the German engineers to figure out how to make bombs so he could drop them from his plane. And what did they come up with? They filled four pound coffee tins with sticks to dynamite, with nails with scrap metal.

[Tin can rattle sound]

Thank you, Ben. And Gunther started carrying them up to the air with him and throwing them over the side. This seems f***ing insane. Can you imagine carrying a coffee tin full of dynamite on your lap while you drive, let alone fly it up into the air?

Billy: That’s awesome. I mean …

Arturo: I love how—yeah. I was gonna say, Billy’s like, “well, if it showed up at that time in my life, I’m just gonna say yes to it.”

Billy: I’m gonna say yes to it. I mean, you know, there’s people that drive with guns in their cars here, man.

Arturo: Yeah. Yeah. It’s different than dynamite. But I see—I see the point. OK. I see the point.

Billy: And these are those biplanes. Like it has two things: Like, it’s open cockpit, the whole thing is what they had at that time.

Arturo: Yeah, that’s what I imagine, because that’s what the Red Barron was known for, right? Like shooting—like fighting. Fighting in the air.

Billy: When did the gun with the revolver come in, or with the propeller? You know when–

Arturo: The gun with a propeller?

Billy: Yeah, so it was timed—it would shoot, but through the—the spins of the blade.

Carl: That was in 1915. That was in 1915. We are a year ahead.

Arturo: OK, so let’s calm the f*** down, Billy. OK. You’re ahead of the—you’re ahead of the game. You’re ahead of the game. So, fortunately for everyone involved, the bombs were mostly duds, right? At one point he dropped this bomb in an English military tent, and it just like, took a trampoline bounce off the canvas.

So it was really embarrassing and then just went into the mud. And when he would hit Japanese ships, the bombs would also just bounce off it without exploding.

And Gunther says that all these failures made him get over the first pleasant emotion of bombing—f***ing, the pleasant emotion of bombing. “F***ing “the pleasant emotion of bombing” definitely sounds like a memoir by a f***ing psychopath, or how you describe the beginning of my standup career. Oh. Pleasure of bombing.

Actually, to be honest, my—my only foray into standup comedy went very well, and I decided never to touch it again. Have you ever tried that?

Billy: Absolutely not. Have you heard—have you heard me talk on this podcast? Not gonna do it.

Arturo: I think you’re funny. You’re funny in a group. You’re good at, you get—you know what? You are great at board games, man. You’re great at leading board games. OK. And don’t let anybody tell you differently buddy.

Billy: Thanks.

Arturo: So with Gunther doing exactly squat with the dumb bombs, the siege of Tsingtao lasted for more than a month. The Germans finally surrendered the city in November, and Gunther had one final mission, and he was given a package of secret documents and told to fly south out of the city. He launched into the air and traveled along the Chinese coast, flying south for as long as he could for those counting at home, this is Gunther’s escape number two.

OK … Flying like a chicken from the siege of Tsingtao and leaving behind all that delicious, delicious beer. Now, eventually Gunther was forced to land, so he did his signature maneuver where he sent his plane nose down into a nice mud patch. Despite his time in Tsingtao, Gunther didn’t speak any Chinese, so he needed an American missionary to help him get into Shanghai. 

Have you ever regretted not learning a language, Billy?

Billy: Yes. So many.

Arturo: Great. OK, moving on. OK. Thank you.

Billy: How many you got? You got Spanish, English.

Arturo: I got—I got two and a half.

Billy: Two and a half. What’s the half?

Arturo: A little bit of French in my—in my pocket.

Billy: Yeah, I got two and a half, too.

Arturo: What you got?

Billy: I got French, English, and half of Spanish. I, I was just—I was in, uh–

Arturo: Once you get Spanish, you automatically like are shoed in for Portuguese and Italian, kind of.

Billy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all romantic languages.

Arturo: We’re romantic guys.

Billy: No.

Arturo: So after he showed up in Shanghai, a mail freighter was scheduled to travel from Shanghai to California, and Gunther got on board. He decided to travel as an Englishman named MacGarvin, and they were sure–

Billy: Macgarvin The Dragon Slayer.

Arturo: Yeah, the—the dragon guy. The dragon slayer. So they were sure that the Americans wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a German accent and an English accent, so he wouldn’t be in any danger. Right? F***ing audacity.

On the way, Gunther made the really strange choice to tell other passengers, well, everything about himself. So that included giving away all the details of his false identity to an American journalist on board. So when the ship docked in Hawaii, the news got ahead of him, right? And by the time they landed in San Francisco in December, newspapers around the country were publishing the story. OK?

Billy: Where’s these—where are the documents that he was like traveling with?

Arturo: He still got ’em in there, but he is telling everybody what they contain. He’s like, “oh, we are, we are planning to attack on October 5.”

Billy: “They were heavy. They were heavy. I, so I–”

Arturo: “Vivaldi Square. Yeah. Are you gonna be there? You want to RSVP?”

So, um—so the newspaper started publishing the story, right? And the headlines were, like, “remarkable series of narrow escapes,” and said that Gunther was pretending to be MacGarvin, and he was trying to get back to Germany to fight the English. Like, whoa. 

Billy, have you ever let something slip that was supposed to stay secret?

Billy: Everything.

Arturo: OK, great.

Billy: Everything. Don’t tell me a secret.

Arturo: I’m terrible at it too. Like, f***ing—I’ll fold like a table.

Billy: I’m like, “well, everyone should know.”

Arturo: Yeah. You’re like, “no, no, no guys, let’s get it out in the open.” 

So, um, now that basically the entire country knew who he was, Gunther rushed to stay ahead of anyone who might want to grab him. He hopped from train to train across the whole country, right? He was looking over his shoulder at every stop being like, “why the f*** did I tell that journalist my secrets? Now I’m being chased by the consequences of my own actions, dammit. But I’m still ze Dragon Master. Kühl, yeah?” His panicked jump from train to train finally brought him to New York. Of course, he didn’t have the right papers for an Atlantic crossing. He needed to find someone in the city who could forge him a passport. Took him about three weeks, and he was apparently pretty desperate by the end. So he says the only thing that calmed–

Billy: What, what—what neighborhood in New York do you think it was?

Arturo: I—I don’t know, but I think, you know, he says that the only thing that calmed his nerves was going to see a performance of Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera. And that’s a true story. He is like, “ah, this is so soothing. Is this from Hansel and Gretel?”

Billy: Yes.

Arturo: So eventually Gunther found a sketchy dude who would make him a fake passport, and he bought a ticket to Italy under the fake Swiss name Ernst Susse. 

You can find anything in New York, right? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever come across in New York City?

Billy: Uh, I remember getting on a subway and they had like, [an] iguana on a leash. Like, just someone, like, having an iguana on a leash in the subway. I was like, “eh, this makes sense.”

Arturo: So now we’re at escape number three.

So Gunther gets across America and it seemed like it was all working out for Gunther, except that when the ship reached Europe, it stopped at the English port of Gibraltar. And you know how Gunther had always been telling people he was Swiss? Well, one of the actual Swiss passengers on board didn’t recognize his accent. Dude, if I were a fugitive, bro, like people would think I’m a f***ing mute. Like, this guy cannot shut the f*** up. He’s like, “yes, this is the accent.” He’s like, “yes, yes. This is the Swiss accent. I am a Swiss guy.” You know, he sounds like a f***ing Brad Pitt character. Anyway.

Billy: But also why is homeboy just being like, “that’s not a Swiss accent, so I should turn ‘em in or tell someone.”

Arturo: Yeah like, mind your f***in business.

Billy: Why do you care?

Arturo: I thought the Swiss were known for being like f***ing neutral.

Billy: They’re neutral!

Arturo: Yeah, dude. Why? Why don’t you go fix the clock? Do me a favor buddy. Go fix the clock while I do my thing. Um, so, I’m sorry, to our Swiss audience of one person. So even with his fake Swiss passport, Gunther was arrested by English officers along with a bunch of other Germans, Gunther was interrogated. And then shipped to England cause he was now a prisoner of war.

CHAPTER 4: Escaping into History

Arturo: So when he was finally locked up at a prisoner of war camp in Plymouth, on the south coast of England, Gunther said that the rules … were made to be broken.

Ja! Everybody’s rules are breaking, yas yas!

So for example, obviously alcohol was forbidden for the prisoners of war, but once the guards became friends with Gunther and the other soldiers, they started smuggling them bottles of beer, and then things just escalated from there. They started to let the German prisoners out to wander around the town, man. And then what’s really f***ing crazy is Gunther says that the English guards would even give them guns so that they could practice rifle exercises together. I mean, this sounds—this sounds like a weird euphemism, but even if it’s not, it’s hard to imagine things being any more lax, right?

Billy: This is probably like a Brokeback Mountain situation that was happening at that prison.

Arturo: Maybe. Maybe. Anyways, so things were completely loose at the first prison. But Gunther kept complaining to the English guards that he was an officer. He gave them his full identity and said that he deserved special treatment. And in England, that f***ing worked. Like because they—so they apologized for—oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. So they apologized for keeping him with soldiers for so long and sent him to an officer’s camp outside of London. And Gunther says that he was finally treated like a human being again. And that the English warden of the officers tried to ease the existence of the Germans there. 

So as Gunther tells it, every two weeks a tailor would drop by the camp and make them new clothes. They were also given a monthly allowance, uh, of money, actual money, and they were allowed to write letters to Germany. What the f***, man? These guys are getting, like, tailored clothes because they’re officers … like, so British aristocracy, isn’t it? “Well, right. If you’ll be a prisoner, chap, then you must look—look the part, old boy.” 

So this only lasted until Gunther was transferred to a new prison camp further inland, a place called Donington Hall. It was this old castle now being used to hold inmates, and Gunther says that everyone was packed into cold stone rooms, and, in his words, “like pickled herrings.” So obviously, you know, he couldn’t stand for this, right? And after one day, when a deer somehow slipped inside the barbed wire fence around the castle, Gunther was convinced that it would be easy enough to slip out and escape. To be honest, his plan was perfectly relatable, right? He started taking naps in the grass near the fence line.

He would lie on the grass. Gunther would watch the pattern of the centuries, right? He figured out that their patrol routes and schedules were matching. And after two months of his stay in Donington Hall, Gunther had it all worked out. He had spent every possible moment watching and waiting and laying his plans. He even worked out a couple of deals with the other prisoners to help him out. So at the beginning of July, Gunther decided it was finally time for escape number four!

[Escape sound x4]

Billy: Let’s go.

Arturo: Thank you, Ben.

Ben: Had to get that fourth one in there.

Arturo: Yeah, you gotta get it. So step one, he says he prepared for the journey ahead by eating several substantial buttered rolls. If you were gonna go run for freedom, what would you—what would you want as your last meal, Billy?

Billy: Kalduny. It’s a meal my grandma makes, Lithuanian dish. It’s basically similar to a pierogi.

Arturo: Oh, OK.

Billy: But it’s like a dough and meat thing. It’s—it’s one of my favorite things. It’s fantastic.

Arturo: Delicious.

Billy: What’s your last meal?

Arturo: Oh, man. Um, probably fondue, you know?

Billy: Really? Cheese or chocolate?

Arturo: Cheese and chocolate. I’m just gonna like, have—if I can double dip, you know, I’ll just be like—cause I like the—I’m like, if I’m gonna go out, I’m gonna go out with, like, the, the—I love the, the custom of it. The, you know, pulling out little bread, pulling out the thing. I’m just, you know, a classy guy. What do you want me to tell you? 

So that night during the evening roll call, another prisoner laid in Gunther’s bed and claimed to be sick while Gunther and another German officer slipped over the barbed wire fence under the cover of a storm.

They had three rows of electrified barbed wire to cross. Right? But Gunther and his companion had bundled themselves in thick leather, and they were able to scramble up and over, taking a few scratches, but nothing worse.

Gunther does say that at one point he tore a hole in the seat of his trousers.

How did they—how did they even get the thick leather leggings to use? I don’t f***ing wanna know. So once they were on the road, they had a close call as one of the prison guards passed by. Gunther says that the two escapees behaved like a rollicking pair of love birds and locked together in a kiss. And they just heard that the guard clicked his tongue and he went on by.

I love the idea of Gunther taking it on for, like, longer than necessary cause, just cause he was lonely. “Bro. Like, bro, we’ve been kissing for a while. Are you sure he can still see us?” Like, “ja, ja. Now tell me I’m funny and cute. It’ll help. Now tell me I’m beautiful, please.” 

So Gunther had carried some normal clothes with him, along with a razor and a few other things. So next morning, as the two escapees made their way toward the nearest train station, they shaved, they changed clothes and climbed onto the train as normal passengers. They easily reached London by noon and escaped. Number four was complete.

Gunther knew the city—he had visited before the war—and he made his final costume change into a dirty sailor suit, apparently. And he started looking around the docks for a boat he could steal. It actually took him a couple of weeks, cause in the meantime, Gunther says he made sure to have a good time in London, right? He went to the museums, ate in the pubs, and he even saw at least one play. What would be a show–

Billy: Hansel and Gretel?

Arturo: Yeah. Hansel and Gretel. He’s like, “cannot get enough.” What would be one show that you risk your freedom to go see? Or a concert?

Billy: I wish I got to see … yeah. Uh, Right before the pandemic, I was going to see Rage Against the Machine. They had just got back together. I would love to see them live.

Arturo: Yeah, for me, it would be a Menudo reunion. I just—I gotta see him once, I talk about ’em all the f***ing time. So I might as well just see ‘em–

Billy: So Menudo is different from amenudo… is like often.

Arturo: Amenudo, that’s right, amenudo. There you go. Your Spanish—your Duolingo is poppin.

Billy: Yeah, dude.

Arturo: But all the fun and games had come to an end. Gunter saw in the paper that the other escapee had been caught and that the Brits were on his trail. The police were searching for a man with a large dragon tattoo on his left arm. So the Dragon Master finally had to go ahead and just start stealing some boats.

Billy: Oh, I thought I—I thought you were gonna say “cut off his arm.”

Arturo: He cut off—Ioved, I loved him being like, “I knew I shouldn’t have made people call me ‘Dragon Master’ here too.” Like, “why did I do this? I cannot get enough of this nickname.” So the first boat that Gunther stole was about as successful as his flying, right? He climbed inside a little boat and pushed off the dock, but after a minute he realized that the boat was leaking. And he says that he tried to paddle the Thames River exactly while it was going dry.

So by the end, the river was empty and the boat was full, and he was completely stuck in the mud. He says that he crawled through the mud back to the riverbank where people walking by thought he was drunk and just laughed at him for crawling around in the mud.

Seriously, has there ever been a more like, “go home, you’re drunk” prison escape? Like, dude, like—f***ing cash it in.

But Gunther went down the river, and the next night, as the tide was going out, he found an unattended fishing boat. So he pushed out into the English channel. It was under the cover of darkness, so he was able to paddle furiously toward a streamer that was anchored off the coast. He reached it without being seen, climbed aboard and stowed away.

That is escape number five. Gunther was finally on his way–

Ben: One more.

Arturo: –back to Germany.

CHAPTER 5: One and Only

Arturo: Gunther Plüschow was the only German prisoner to escape an English prisoner of war camp in either World War I or World War II, or at least that’s his story. So in total, his journey from Tsingtao across America into the English POW camps, and then finally back into Germany had taken only nine months. In 1922–

Billy: Wow!

Arturo: Yeah. Gunther published a book in English called My Escape from Donington Hall, and it gave a detailed story of his life. It is—uh, you might not be surprised to hear—extremely racist about people he met in China, and this is—so I wouldn’t recommend people reading it—but he spends a lot of time talking about how great Germany is and, and how—how much he loves the German emperor and the prestige for the white race.

Oh, that’s nice. Oh, that’s—good for you, Gunther. But there’s a lot of extra bullsh*t about like, darling blonde hair and wonderful blue eyes. And wait a minute, was he describing you, Billy? Was he? He’s like “one day there would be born a man who builds houses with beautiful blue eyes.” I don’t even know—are you eyes blue or green?

Billy: They’re blue. Gunther’s my uncle.

Arturo: So after his escape, Gunther took up flying again. When the war ended, he started sailing too. He started going to his favorite German destination, Argentina. Bro, German soldiers love Argentina like they love—it’s wild. It’s wild how many blonde babies were born in 1946 down there, you know. Obviously, guy was truly a trailblazer for Nazis. You know, on one of his trips, Gunther even brought a camera with him and made a silent film called [German]—sorry, Germans—or, Flying in Pictures to Unknown Worlds.

Billy: No, I thought it translated to “100 percent that b*tch.”

Arturo: That’s what it is. It was a Lizzo song—an early version of a Lizzo song. So it follows his journey across the Atlantic, showing him flying and has some early airborne footage of Tierra El Fuego. It’s all up on YouTube at this point if you wanna check it out. And apparently it was a huge hit in Germany in the 1930s. So all these things bring us to the end of his life. Any guesses for how Gunther is gonna die, dude?

Billy: Uh, it costs—like, chokes on something in his sleep.

Arturo: No dude. No, no, no, no. He was flying—he was flying his plane in Argentina, of course. And once when he was up over the mountains, he lost control, for what was like the millionth time. But the self-proclaimed Dragon Master had run outta luck. It was 1931 when Gunther finally went down in the mountains of Patagonia. Only this time instead of the plane flying into a pile of sh*t, it was a pile of sh*t flying into a mountain. Oooh! And that’s it, buddy. Wow.

Outro

Arturo: Ahhh! What are the takeaways? What are the takeaways of this story for you, my friend?

Billy: Um, to get out of any situation, you need, just some, uh, care and love.

Arturo: That’s it, man. And so now for a little plug OK? So listeners can find you in the film Lift on Netflix, Roadhouse on Amazon, The Franchise on HBO and later this year—the Lilo & Stitch live action remake.

Billy: Roadhouse. You, you and I…

Arturo: Roadhouse, baby, check it out, Roadhouse. And so, listen, let me know if you’re into this, but to play us out, I would like for them to play us a song and for us to kind of try to reenact a conversation how a conversation or a song would—because I hear you have a beautiful voice—so a song would go between Gunther and maybe his military observer up in the air for the first time. You wanna try it?

Billy: OK. Um, good.

[Waltz tune]

Arturo [singing]: “Do you see a mountain down there? Should we go down there? Is it destiny that we are flying together?”

Billy [singing]: “It’s very cold in the backseat. Can you open the window? Oh, there are no windows because there is a open air cockpit.”

Arturo [singing]: “Ve are gonna crash. Do you wanna crash, do you wanna crash? You see that pile of manure? Would you like to go untz untz untz?” 

My God. Thank you, buddy. Thank you so much, brother.

Billy: Oh my god.

Arturo: That was so f***ing funny.

Billy: You do some amazing sh*t, man.

Arturo: Brother, uh, I—I have all the love for you. I appreciate you doing this. Thank you for being so open with us, and I can’t wait for us to do another f***ing film together, man. I—I really, truly can’t wait.

Billy: Oh yeah. Anytime.

Arturo: All right, brother. Thank you. And that’s Greatest Escapes. We’re out.

Credits

Arturo: Greatest Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and FilmNation Entertainment, in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Arturo, Alyssa Martino and Milan Popelka from FilmNation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Whitney Donaldson from Gilded Audio, and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio.

The show is produced and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chugg, who are also, respectively, our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is Tory Smith, who is our other overlord.

Nick Dooley is our technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Ryzack, Sara Joyner, Nicki Stein, Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright.

Hey, thank you so much for listening, and if you’re enjoying the show, please leave a rating or review. My mom will call you each personally and thank you, and we’ll see you all next week.