Glienicke bridge
Encyclopedia
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
on the edge of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
that spans the Havel
Havel
The Havel is a river in north-eastern Germany, flowing through the German states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt. It is a right tributary of the Elbe river and in length...
River to connect the cities of Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
near Klein Glienicke. The current bridge, the fourth on the site, was completed in 1907, although major reconstruction was necessary after it was damaged in the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Bridge of spies
During the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, Glienicke Bridge was one of the few places in the world where the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the Western powers stood directly opposite each other. Thus, “deals” could be made here without any of their allies having any say in the matter. The bridge lies at an isolated point where US-occupied West-Berlin met Soviet-occupied Potsdam, which was in East Germany.
The United States and the Soviet Union used it four times to exchange captured spies
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, and the Bridge was referred to as the Bridge of Spies by reporters.
The first prisoner exchange
Prisoner exchange
A prisoner exchange or prisoner swap is a deal between opposing sides in a conflict to release prisoners. These may be prisoners of war, spies, hostages, etc...
between the superpower
Superpower
A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...
s took place on February 10, 1962. The U.S. released noted Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel
Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher
Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher was a noted Soviet intelligence officer...
in exchange for U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers
Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.- Early life :...
captured by the USSR following the U-2 Crisis of 1960
U-2 Crisis of 1960
The 1960 U-2 incident occurred during the Cold War on May 1, 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower and during the leadership of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, when a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over the airspace of the Soviet Union.The United States government at...
.
The next swap took place on April 1964, when Konon Molody
Konon Molody
Konon Trofimovich Molody was a Soviet intelligence officer, better known in the West as Gordon Arnold Lonsdale. He was an illegal resident spy during the Cold War and the mastermind of the Portland Spy Ring....
was exchanged for Greville Wynne
Greville Wynne
Greville Maynard Wynne was a British spy famous for his involvement with, and imprisonment as a result of, the espionage activities of Oleg Penkovsky.-Life:...
.
On June 12, 1985, there was a hurriedly arranged swap of 23 American agents held in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
for Polish agent Marian Zacharski
Marian Zacharski
Marian Zacharski , was a Polish Intelligence officer arrested in 1981 and convicted of espionage against the United States. After four years in prison, he was exchanged for American agents on Berlin's famous Glienicke Bridge. Arguably, he was one of the most famous agents of the Polish ...
and another three Soviet agents arrested in the West.
The final exchange was also the most public. On February 11, 1986 the human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
campaigner and political prisoner Anatoly Sharansky and three Western agents were exchanged for Karl Koecher
Karl Koecher
Karel František Koecher is the only mole known to have penetrated the CIA.-Early life:Born in Czechoslovakia, he became a radio comedy writer and was allegedly frequently scrutinized by the Communist security forces for his satire that mocked the regime...
and four other Eastern agents.
In popular culture
The Glienicke bridge as a venue for prisoner exchange has also appeared in fiction, most notably in the 1966 Harry PalmerHarry Palmer
Harry Palmer is the name of the protagonist of a number of films based on the main character from the spy novels written by Len Deighton. Michael Caine played Harry Palmer in the films based on three of the first four of the published novels featuring this character, and also later in two films not...
film, Funeral in Berlin
Funeral in Berlin (film)
Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 British spy film based on the novel Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton. It is the second of three 1960s films starring Michael Caine that followed the characters from the initial film, The Ipcress File ...
, starring Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
, based on the novel of the same name by Len Deighton
Len Deighton
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....
.
The popular nickname 'Bridge of Spies' was used by the British band T'Pau
T'Pau (band)
T'Pau was a 1980s British Rock group led by singer Carol Decker. They had a string of Top 40 hits in the UK, and several hits in the United States and Europe...
as the name of the title track on their first album. The usage is metaphorical, referring to a 'walk to freedom' but in the context of long dreamt-of relationship.
The bridge is also referenced in the popular kid's TV show Codename: Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door
Codename: Kids Next Door, also known as Kids Next Door or by its acronym KND, is an American animated television series created by Tom Warburton and produced by Curious Pictures in Santa Monica, California.. The series debuted on Cartoon Network on December 6, 2002 and aired its final episode on...
, specifically when a bridge in a local mall is used to exchange a spy from the KND in return for a spy from the Teenagers, a clear parody of the real-life prisoner exchanges.
Similarly, in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film Die Another Day
Die Another Day
Die Another Day is the 20th spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth and last film to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond; it is also the last Bond film of the original timeline with the series being rebooted with Casino Royale...
, 007 takes part in a prisoner exchange on a bridge as a reference to Glienicke and the historical practice. The scene is set, however, on the border of North
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
– supposedly spanning the DMZ in a thick jungle. In reality, no such bridge exists; Panmunjom, the only point along the border where one can walk between the two nation states, is open country. However, this is presumably intended to be a fictionalised Bridge of No Return
Bridge of No Return
Located in the Joint Security Area , the so-called "Bridge of No Return" crosses the Military Demarcation Line between North Korea and South Korea. It was used for prisoner exchanges at the end of the Korean War in 1953. The name originates from the claim that many war prisoners captured by the...
.
Access
The Glienicke Bridge is the terminus of Potsdam tram routePotsdam Tramway
The Potsdam tram network is the tram system of the German city of Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg. It is owned by the public citizen company Verkehrsbetrieb Potsdam and included in the fare zone "C" of the Berliner public transport area.-History:The network opened on 12 May 1880: It was an...
93 from Potsdam main station
Potsdam Hauptbahnhof
Potsdam Hauptbahnhof is the main railway station in German city of Potsdam. It is the southern terminus of S-Bahn line and, replacing the S7 on Friday and Saturday nights, the line .- Overview :...
, and of Berlin bus route
Bus transport in Berlin
The Bus transport in Berlin , operated by BVG, is the public bus service network of Berlin, Germany. Opened in 1846, it represents the oldest public transport service of the city...
316 from Wannsee station. The two routes interconnect at a tram stop just on the Potsdam side of the bridge. Both Potsdam and Wannsee stations are served by the Berlin S-Bahn
Berlin S-Bahn
The Berlin S-Bahn is a rapid transit system in and around Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It consists of 15 lines and is integrated with the mostly underground U-Bahn to form the backbone of Berlin's rapid transport system...
and by longer distance trains.