The Glienicke bridge (Glienicker Brücke) is a bridge in Berlin which spans the Havel River to connect the cities of Potsdam and Berlin near Klein Glienicke. It was completed in 1907.
The Soviet Union and the United States used it three times to exchange captured spies during the Cold War, and the Bridge was referred to as the Bridge of Spies by reporters.
The first prisoner exchange between the superpowers took place on February 10, 1962. The U.S. released noted Russian spy Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel in exchange for pilot Francis Gary Powers captured by the USSR following the U-2 Crisis of 1960. Annette von Broecker claims that a lucky guess resulted in her being the only eyewitness to this exchange.
The second exchange on June 12, 1985 was a hurriedly arranged swap of 23 American agents held in Eastern Europe for Polish agent Marian Zacharski and another three Soviet agents arrested in the West.
The final exchange was also the most public. On February 11, 1986 the human rights campaigner and political prisoner Anatoly Sharansky and three Western agents were exchanged for Karl Koecher and four other Eastern agents.
The Glienicke bridge as a venue for prisoner exchange has also appeared in fiction, most notably in the 1966 Harry Palmer film, Funeral in Berlin, starring Michael Caine, based on the novel of the same name.
The bridge is also referenced in the popular kid's show ', 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.