The Glienicke Bridge, which spans the Havel between Potsdam and West Berlin, has gone down in the history of the Cold War as an “agent bridge”. Since the construction of the wall on August 13, 1961, it has been located in the border area and is closely guarded. On their middle there is a white line marking the border. It’s actually a completely lost place. Three times, however, the Glienicke Bridge comes into the focus of world interest when Russians and Americans exchange agents on it. This happened for the first time on February 10, 1962. The exchange of agents was preceded, of course, by a tough poker game between the USA, the USSR and the GDR.
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KGB spy in the United States unmasked
in 1957, Rudolf Abel, an English-born top spy of the Soviet secret service KGB, is exposed in the USA. With him, the investigators find secret military documents that Abel passed on to the USSR. According to American law, the death penalty is mandatory for the betrayal of military secrets. Abel’s public defender James Donovan, however, manages to dissuade the court from imposing the maximum sentence. His argument: after all, it is possible that at some point an American agent will be exposed by the Soviet Union. Then you could exchange both agents for each other. The court follows Donovan’s defense strategy and sentences Rudolf Abel “only” to a prison sentence of 30 years.
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A letter from lawyer Wolfgang Vogel from East Berlin
At first, however, nothing at all happens in the matter of Abel. The USSR does not profess its spy, and Abel himself does not say a word. But then, in 1959, James Donovan suddenly receives a letter from an East Berlin lawyer. In it, a certain Wolfgang Vogel, on behalf of Abel’s Leipzig wife, asks to be allowed to cover the legal costs in the amount of 10,000 dollars. In fact, this wife does not exist, but the money nevertheless soon arrives at Donovan. But the lawyer reacts dismissively: the US is not interested in the $ 10,000, which in reality comes from the KGB from Moscow, and a free purchase of Abel is not up for debate. They would only negotiate an exchange. But the Soviet Union has nothing to offer in this regard.
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American reconnaissance aircraft shot down over the USSR
One year later, on May 1, 1960, US pilot Gary Powers is on a spy flight over the USSR in his U-2, a reconnaissance aircraft equipped with high-resolution cameras. For years, the machine, flying at an altitude of twenty kilometers, has been providing the US intelligence services with sensational images of industrial and military facilities of the communist world empire. This time, however, the U-2 is hit by an anti-aircraft missile. Powers can barely save himself with the ejection seat. He is arrested and sentenced to a ten-year prison sentence. The USSR now has an American agent as a bargaining chip. The scenario of lawyer Donovan has become a reality.
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James Donovan: Two Americans against a Russian
Gradually, there is also movement in history. KGB and James Donovan are negotiating an exchange of Abel and Powers through lawyer Wolfgang Vogel in East Berlin. Both sides distrust each other and progress is slow. But then the negotiations seem to have ended again. The FBI is against an exchange of the two, because Powers, the agency explains, is only a pilot, Abel, on the other hand, a big fish. Donovan now brings American Millard Pryor into the game. Pryor is studying in the GDR and is accused by the state security of spying and human trafficking. In the Stasi prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, the innocent young man is waiting for his trial. Donovan proposes to exchange the two Americans for Abel. But the Soviet Union does not want to go into the formula two Americans against a Russian at first. Lawyer Vogel was finally able to persuade the KGB negotiators to change their minds at the end of 1961. Nothing now stands in the way of an exchange of the agents.
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Exchange of agents on the Glienicker Bridge
In the early morning of February 10, 1962, the exchange of agents is to take place. James Donovan suggests the Glienicker Bridge as a meeting place, because there is no border crossing on it and there are hardly any residents in the neighborhood. It’s a secretive place. At 8.45 a.m. Wolfgang Vogel first hands over Millard Pryor to the Americans at Checkpoint Charly in Berlin’s Friedrichstraße. A few minutes later, the two main actors, Rudolf Abel and Gary Powers, set off on their way over the deserted Glienicker Bridge. One in the east direction, the other in the west direction. The two pay no attention to each other as they cross the white line on the middle of the bridge. They get into waiting limousines and rush away. Then there is silence again at the Glienicke Bridge.
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Wolfgang Vogel’s career and Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies”
After his first placement of an agent exchange, Wolfgang Vogel is making a fabulous career. Agent exchange and prisoner release are his business. By 1989, he was involved in the release of 150 agents from 23 states. But he is also significantly involved in the release of more than 33,000 political prisoners from GDR prisons by the Federal Republic. Vogel, who from the mid-1970s held the function of the “Humanitarian Commissioner of the GDR State Council Chairman Erich Honecker”, also works closely with the Federal Chancellors Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. In the East, the communist driving a silver Mercedes is regarded as a lawyer in the service of humanity, in the West, on the other hand, as a more or less unscrupulous trafficker of people.
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In 2015, by the way, Hollywood director Steven Spielberg uses the spy story about Abel and Powers as a template for his film “Bridge of Spies”. The main role is played by a smart New York lawyer: James Donovan, portrayed by Tom Hanks. The most important location of the agent thriller – of course, the Glienicker Bridge.
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