Glienicke bridge
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The Glienicke bridge is a bridge in Berlin which spans the Havel River to connect the cities of Berlin and Potsdam. Because the Soviet Union and the United States used it three times to exchange captured spies during the Cold War, the bridge was referred to as the Bridge of Spies by the media. It is located at .
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.
The second exchange on June 12, 1985 was a hurriedly arranged swap of 23 American agents held in Eastern Europe for four 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 was exchanged for a Soviet spy Karl Koecher.
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.
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