During the Cold War, the Havel River formed part of the border between East Germany and West Berlin. The bridge became famous as a site for exchanging captured spies, earning the nickname “Bridge of Spies.”
The first such exchange took place on February 10, 1962. The United States released Rudolf Abel, who had been convicted of espionage in 1957, in exchange for Gary Powers, the pilot of a U-2 spy plane shot down over Soviet territory in 1960.
In 1985, a major exchange saw 23 American agents swapped for Marian Zacharski and three other Soviet agents after three years of negotiations.
The final and most public exchange occurred in 1986, when Natan Sharansky, a Soviet human rights activist and political prisoner, along with three Western agents, was exchanged for Karl Koecher and four other Eastern B
loc agents.
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