Glienicke Bridge
 Glienicke Bridge
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| use | Road traffic | |
| Convicted | B 1 | |
| Crossing of | Havel | |
| construction | three-span iron truss bridge (fachwerkversteifte Zügelgurtbrücke ) | |
| overall length | 128 m | |
| width | 22 m | |
| Longest span | 74 m | |
| Headroom | 5.46 m - 5.68 m | |
| start of building | 1906 | |
| opening | November 16, 1907 | |
| location | ||
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The Glienicker bridge over the Havel between Berlin and Potsdam connects over the national road 1 to King Street ( Berlin-Wannsee ) with Berliner Strasse in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam. The road bridge owes its name to the nearby former Gut Klein Glienicke , which is now the site of Glienicke Castle . The truss bridge was opened at the end of 1907 as the fourth structure at this point under the name Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke , but it did not prevail.
The state border between Brandenburg and Berlin and the city border with Potsdam run across the middle of the bridge . During the time of the division of Germany , the Glienicke Bridge gained worldwide fame through the third and final exchange of agents, spectacularly staged on February 11, 1986 .
location
To the north of the bridge is the Jungfernsee and south of it the Glienicker Lake with the beginning of the Teltow Canal . Freight traffic on the inland waterway Havel shortens the Potsdam Havel bend through the Sacrow-Paretz Canal and therefore does not pass under the bridge. The flow of water also mostly takes the shorter route. Opposite the Glienicke Palace is the Glienicke Hunting Lodge , which is known today as the Berlin-Brandenburg Social Pedagogical Training Center (SFBB).
history
Wooden bridges 1660 and 1777
At the end of the 17th century, the first narrow wooden bridge was built at this point, which was reserved for the nobility as a connection between the Potsdam palaces and the hunting grounds on the other side of the Havel . In 1754, almost 100 years later, a permanent mail connection was established between Berlin and Potsdam over the bridge, which has now also been opened to general carriage traffic. Due to the rapid increase in traffic, the old structure had to be replaced in 1777 by a new wooden drawbridge with a railing and guard houses on both sides. Since there were often problems with the controls - some coachmen simply drove through uncontrolled - a barrier was erected on this bridge for the first time.
The Berlin-Potsdamer Chaussee was expanded from 1792–1795 as a Prussian model and model chaussee , and the users had to pay a toll to finance the construction. For this purpose, a road money collector's house was built at Glienicke Bridge . Here officials collected bridge fees, but not from nobles. At the end of the 18th century, the bridge received its first fixed control point.
Third Havel bridge after Schinkel 1831
In addition to the wooden bridge, the construction of a stone bridge began in 1831, based on designs by the Prussian court architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel . The Prussian state determined the following for the construction:
"[...] has eleven flow openings, of which ten openings, each 31 1 ⁄ 2 feet wide and vaulted, and one opening for the passage of the ship's vessels, which is 30 feet in the clear and covered with two pulling flaps. The full length of the bridge between the end walls is 565 feet. The carriageway is 20 feet wide and each sidewalk is four feet wide. [Note 1] The former is paved with hewn granite stones, the footpaths are made of sharply burned stones [...] "
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Princess Maria, "the exalted daughter [... of the ...] beloved king, Her Majesty the Empress of Russia [...] Most High and Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Maria" inaugurated the new bridge on September 30, 1834. At the opening, the then Potsdam bishop said:
“[…] It is as delicious as it is well-done. It is one of the finest buildings under His Majesty's Government, and one looks at it and the beautiful region that extends before it with pleasure. "
The bridge tollhouse was removed and sold the following year. In the same year, exotic cargo passed under the bridge: the steamship Henriette brought a lion, two anteaters and two monkeys from the Hamburg harbor for the royal zoo on Pfaueninsel . The freight was accompanied by Princes Carl and Wilhelm .
On October 7, 1897, Adolf Slaby , professor of electrical engineering, set up a telegraphic radio link based on the Marconi system as a test connection. The longest section from the sailor station Kongsnæs northwest of the Glienicke Bridge to the Heilandskirche at the Port of Sacrow was 1.4 kilometers long.
Fourth, today's Glienicke Bridge, 1907
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With the opening of the Teltow Canal on June 2, 1906 and the start of motorized traffic, it became urgently necessary to replace the drawbridge with a higher and more solid bridge, because the inland waterway that began in 1900 and comes from Glienicker Lake ended at Schinkel Bridge . For the years 1902–1904, an average monthly traffic volume of 11,400 wagons and cars was given. Despite protests from monument preservationists , the brick bridge has now been demolished and in 1906 the construction of a new road bridge began. It is a truss bridge with a broken steel structure . The construction was carried out by the Harkort company from Duisburg . Stone centaurs by the sculptor Stephan Walter are placed on the brick head ends of the bridge as jewelry. The building was opened to traffic on November 16, 1907. It was given the official name Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge , but this did not prevail. Architectural critics expressed themselves rather derogatory about the appearance of the bridge, it was "a clumsy iron construction".
During the construction of the new bridge, rails and overhead lines for an extension of the Potsdam tram to Klein Glienicke and Wannsee station had already been installed on both sides of the road . The plans were followed up until the end of the First World War and the rails were removed during the road renovation in 1934.
The bus line P ( Zehlendorf-Mitte station - Potsdam, Glienicker Brücke) of the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Aktiengesellschaft , which was put into operation in 1927 with a route length of 12.5 kilometers , contributed significantly to the fact that the new bridge developed into a destination for excursions. At the bridge were the landing stages of the steamship companies, whose tours were very popular. The decorative turrets that were present on the pylons when the iron bridge was completed were removed in 1931 due to excessive maintenance costs.
From 1937 the Reich administration had Reichsstraße 1 (now: Bundesstraße 1 ) expanded to four lanes. The Glienicke Bridge was widened and raised by 4.50 meters and thus adapted for traffic. It soon became one of the busiest road bridges in Germany.
The bus connection was less and less frequented during the war years until it was discontinued in 1945. In the last days of April 1945, during the fighting between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army in the area of the Berlin suburb of Potsdam, the Glienicke Bridge was destroyed. Contrary to other publications, it was neither intentionally blown up by the Wehrmacht nor by the Red Army, although explosive charges had been attached to all pillars . The pioneer scheduled for demolition was located in one of the last houses on the Potsdam side. An intended demolition would have completely destroyed the bridge. An attack by the Red Army from the Berlin side was expected. In the meantime, however, units of the Red Army were approaching the bridge from downtown Potsdam, the New Garden and the Babelsberg Park . The Soviet tanks fired on the bridge and hit two explosive charges that destroyed part of the bridge, all the other detonators remained intact.
From the end of the war to 1989
After the end of the Second World War , a temporary wooden structure was built next to the impassable bridge. The first passenger ship to be operated again after the end of the war, the Steamer Potsdam , sailed from June 20, 1945 from Stößensee in Berlin-Spandau to Glienicke Bridge. It replaced the destroyed S-Bahn connection between Berlin and Potsdam. The Berlin Conference , later known as the Potsdam Conference , began in Cecilienhof Palace with its first deliberations. For the Allied conference participants, some of whom came via Berlin, Soviet pioneers installed a pontoon bridge over the Havel instead of the destroyed Glienicke Bridge.
On November 3, 1947, the reconstruction of the bridge began. The site manager Hans Dehnert had the collapsed steel structure lifted and reinserted in the original shape of the bridge sections that had been preserved. However, the repair of the supporting structure reduced the load capacity of the bridge. For this reason, the previously overhanging footpath consoles were moved inwards, which led to a reduction in the width of the carriageway from 13 to 11 meters. The reopening took place on December 19, 1949 with the participation of high GDR officials such as the then Transport Minister Hans Reingruber . A cabinet decision of the state government of Brandenburg determined the renaming of the structure in the bridge of the unit . A white line was drawn right in the middle of the bridge, marking the border between the GDR and West Berlin . The wooden temporary structure disappeared in 1950. Since then, the bridge has had a different coat of paint. The eastern (Berlin) part of the bridge is a little darker.
From 1952 the bridge was closed to private car traffic. West Berliners and West Germans could only get across with a special permit. GDR citizens could continue to cross until 1961, but were checked. Soviet military checkpoints were set up for members of the military liaison mission. These had their headquarters in West Berlin and their official locations in the immediate vicinity of Potsdamer Seestrasse ( France and Great Britain ) and in Sacrow ( USA ). From there - in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement - they could make inspection trips to military facilities in the GDR.
Between 1962 and 1986, high-ranking agents from both military camps were exchanged for one another three times on Glienicke Bridge. Among other things, the spies Rudolf Iwanowitsch Abel and Francis Gary Powers were exchanged on February 10, 1962 . From 1963, members of the military missions of the Czechoslovak Republic , Poland and Yugoslavia (and some of their family members) residing in West Berlin were also allowed to cross the bridge with the appropriate identification documents. In 1973 the regulation was extended to include employees of the Consulate General of the USSR , which had been based in West Berlin since June 1973 .
The repair of the iron bridge structure, which was necessary in the 1970s, did not come about because the negotiating partners of the GDR and West Berlin did not agree on their financing. The GDR authorities closed the bridge on November 15, 1984 for security reasons. This measure led to new talks between visiting officers from the Berlin Senate and the GDR government. In the result published on December 20, 1984, the West Berlin Senate declared that it would assume the estimated repair costs of two million marks .
Breakthrough
On March 11, 1988 at around 2 a.m., three refugees from Potsdam broke through the barriers on the bridge to West Berlin with a stolen W50 standard truck .
Since 1989
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One day after the fall of the Berlin Wall , on November 10, 1989, the bridge was reopened to everyone. In the German Unification Treaty of 1990, the lifting of all blocking and control measures was officially agreed.
The bridge is open to general public road and pedestrian traffic and is part of federal highway 1 .
In the middle of the bridge, a metal band on the left and right pedestrian walkway has been a reminder of the old borderline and the abolition of the division since 2012. On the Potsdam side, a brown plaque with an inscription reminds of the reopening. On the Berlin side there is a memorial plaque on the history of the bridge.
"Agent bridge"
When some key opponents were arrested in both military camps during the Cold War , officials negotiated an exchange of people. The Glienicke Bridge proved to be particularly suitable. It was easily accessible from Berlin by the participating powers, the USA and the Soviet Union, and the environment could be optimally secured. The nearby Villa Kampffmeyer served the KGB as an observation post. Between 1962 and 1986, three exchanges with a total of 40 people were carried out on Glienicke Bridge. That is why it later went through the media under the name of Bridge of Agents . The English nickname of the bridge is Bridge of Spies ("Bridge of Spies"). The East Berlin lawyer Wolfgang Vogel played an important mediating role in the preparation of the exchanges in 1985 and 1986 .
Exchange 1
On February 10, 1962, Colonel Rudolf Iwanowitsch Abel , top Soviet spy in the United States, was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers , an American pilot who was shot down during a spy flight on the U-2 over the Soviet Union. Although the action should be kept as secret as possible, the exchange made headlines in the media.
In 2015 the film Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator was released , the main focus of which is on the prehistory despite the film title, but in which the exchange is also portrayed. The corresponding scenes were filmed on the original location at the end of 2014.
Exchange 2
After more than 20 years, prisoners from both camps were exchanged again on Glienicke Bridge. The GDR negotiator Wolfgang Vogel had agreed that 25 western agents arrested in the GDR and Poland (including Eberhard Fätkenheuer and Werner Jonsek) would be exchanged for four spies arrested in the west by the CIA (including Alfred Zehe and Alice Michelson). On June 11, 1985, 23 prisoners were exchanged for four spies.
Exchange 3
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On February 11, 1986, the four people arrested in the East, Anatoly Shcharansky (USSR, dissident , critic of the regime , opposition , from the perspective of the USSR an agent , were convicted of treason and anti-Soviet agitation , later Israeli Trade Minister Natan Sharansky), the GDR citizen Wolf- Georg Frohn , the Czechoslovak Jaroslav Javorský and the FRG citizen Dietrich Nistroy were exchanged for five prisoners from the West. It was about Hana Koecher , KGB agent, home: Czechoslovakia, Karel Koecher , KGB agent, home: Czechoslovakia, Yevgeni Semlyakov , computer specialist of the USSR, Jerzy Kaczmarek , Polish intelligence officer and Detlef Scharfenorth . It had long been disputed whether Anatoly Shcharansky should be treated as a freedom fighter (US perspective) or an agent (Soviet perspective). The Americans prevailed with their point of view and managed to have Shcharansky driven to the border line at Glienicke Bridge before the three others. There, the representatives of the KGB let him run across the bridge with pants that were too wide and without a belt, so that he had to keep his pants tight in front of the television cameras. While the western media reported extensively on the location of the event, in the east only the SED party organ Neues Deutschland printed a few lines about the exchange on Glienicke Bridge :
“Due to agreements between the USA and the FRG as well as the USSR, the ČSSR, the VRP and the GDR, an exchange of people who had been imprisoned by the respective countries took place on Tuesday, February 11, 1986. Several scouts were among them. "
The Glienicke Bridge in public
- The English pop band T'Pau released an album in 1986 and a single the following year, the title Bridge of Spies - and rather incidentally the text - is related to the Glienicke Bridge.
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On August 21, 1997, Spiegel editor Norbert Pötzl presented his book about the agent exchange bazaar of spies directly on the Glienicke Bridge in the presence of the former GDR negotiator Wolfgang Vogel .
- The German post office issued a stamp with the motif of the bridge on January 22, 1998th
- After the political change, a memorial plaque was ceremoniously unveiled on the bridge and on November 10, 1999 the bronze sculpture Nike 89 by the sculptor Wieland Förster was unveiled. Both are intended to remind of the fall of the Berlin Wall .
- The landscape ensemble around the bridge is part of the world cultural heritage of the palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin .
- The bridge is painted in two shades of green, on the Potsdam half in a lighter one, on the Berlin half in a darker one.
Buildings near the Glienicke Bridge
- east of the bridge (Berlin side):
- west of the bridge (Potsdam side):
See also
literature
- Hans Dieter Behrendt: In the shadow of the agent bridge . GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz 2003, ISBN 3-89819-140-0 .
- Thomas Blees: Glienicke Bridge. Location of the story . be.bra-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8148-0173-5 .
- Hans Dehnert: The restoration of the Glienicker bridge near Potsdam. In: Construction planning and construction technology. Jg. 3, 1949, ISSN 0005-6758 , pp. 375-384.
- Heidi Diehl: The 'new' Glienicke Bridge will be 50 years old on Sunday. In: New Germany . 18./19. December 1999, p. 12.
- Maria Milde : Berlin Glienicker Bridge. Notes from Babelsberg. Universitas-Verlag, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-8004-0858-9 .
- Ilse Nicolas: From Potsdamer Platz to Glienicker Bridge. History and present of a large Berlin street . (= Berlin reminiscences . Vol. 13). Haude and Spener, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-7759-0206-6 .
- Gudrun Sachse: A little spy. The story about Eberhard Fätkenheuer. In: NZZ Folio . No. 07/2006, ISSN 1420-5262 .
- Giles Whittell: Bridge of Spies - A True Story of the Cold War . Simon and Schuster, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-84983-327-1 ( English ).
Movies and videos
- Under the bridges . Feature film 1944/1945, director: Helmut Käutner , production: UFA
- Operation area GDR. Glienicker Bridge terminus. Documentary by Jürgen Ast and Martin Hübner, 45 min., Production: MDR , first broadcast: November 23, 2004, Glienicker Brücke terminus ( memento of February 26, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Synopsis of the MDR
- From the citizens' festival on the Glienicke Bridge. Germany 2009, shown on November 10, 2009 in the RBB from 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. (previous construction, escape above and below the bridge, security, diplomatic traffic, fishermen on the bridge)
- The bazaar of floppy hats . In: Berliner Kurier . August 15, 1997.
- Prisoner Exchange. Memories of the Glienicke Bridge . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . January 29, 2004.
- Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator , feature film 2015, US-German co-production, director: Steven Spielberg , leading actor: Tom Hanks
In films, the Swinemünde Bridge is often used as a substitute for the Glienicke Bridge. The bridges differ in the cross bracing above the roadway and the half-height of the trusses on the pillars at the Swinemünde bridge.
Web links
- Detailed, illustrated documentation about the Glienicke Bridge
- Exchange of agents on Glienicke Bridge. Photo report from an East German perspective
- Project sponsored by Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz
Individual evidence
- ^ History of the Glienicke Bridge, accessed on October 9, 2009.
- ↑ Delicious and well-rounded: Schinkel's Glienicker Bridge. Archived from the original on June 15, 2009 ; Retrieved March 8, 2013 .
- ^ A b Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and its bridges. Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89773-073-1 , pp. 131/132.
- ^ History of the Glienicke Bridge , accessed on October 9, 2009.
- ↑ Michael Günther: With the tram over the Glienicker bridge? About some unrealized plans for the Potsdam tram . In: Verkehrsgeschichtliche Blätter . No. 2 + 3 , 2014, pp. 29-37, 67-71 .
- ^ Successful truck escape over the Glienicker Bridge in Potsdam, March 10, 1988. In: Chronik-der-Mauer.de. Retrieved November 3, 2018 .
- ↑ Espionage anniversary: The bridge of agents. In: German Spy Museum. February 10, 2017, accessed July 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Alice Michelson in the DRAFD Wiki.
- ↑ June 11, 1985: Countdown of the exchange of agents , Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk – MDR, August 23, 2004, report ( memento of February 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).