Glienicke Bridge - The "Bridge of Spys"
N 52° 24.807 E 013° 05.435
33U E 370134 N 5808739
The infamous Cold War Spy Bridge
Waymark Code: WM26K7
Location: Brandenburg, Germany
Date Posted: 09/12/2007
Views: 176
Of all the
Cold War border crossings, the infamous
spy-bridge is one of the most famous ones, though most people don't really know where it is and probably wouldn't recognize it if they'd cross it today. The bridge is commonly believed to be somewhere in the middle of divided Berlin (even the movie
Funeral in Berlin made that mistake) while the real location is on the very outskirts of former West-Berlin. The bridge crosses river Havel, connecting Berlin with Potsdam which puts the "West" (West-Berlin) on the eastern shore and the "East" (the city of Potsdam) on the western shore.
There has been a wooden bridge at this location as early as the late 1600s and since 1753 it was essential for the delivery of mail between Berlin and Potdam. The wooden bridge was replaced by a stone bridge in 1853 which in 1907 made way for the recent metal construction.
The bridge was destroyed in the last days of World War II in 1945 but was rebuilt as early as 1949. From that moment on, a white line in the middle of the bridge marked the border between West-Berlin's American Sector and Russian controlled East-Germany. With the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the bridge was closed for traffic and was open only for members of the Allied Forces. Each side maintained its half of the bridge, resulting in different paint colors. Today, the white line in the middle is gone but the "tradition" of different colors has been kept (see picture).
The bridge became famous for its exchanges of prisoners between the Cold War superpowers. The first one, the exchange of Russian spy Rudolf Abel for American U2 pilot Gary Powers took place rather secretly while the last one, the exchange of Russian human rights campaigner and political prisoner Anatoly Sharansky for five Eastern spys was a huge public event.
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Russian bus on the East-Germany side of the bridge |
American soldier on the West-Berlin side of the bridge |
Click on the pictures for more information.
Today, the bridge maks the border between two German states, Berlin on the eastern side and Brandenburg (represented by it capital Potsdam) on the western side.
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Judy on the Potsdam-side |
Volker with one foot in the east and one foot in the west |
Volker on the Berlin-side |
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