A Visit to ‘Spy Bridge’, Germany

Suppose when you are alone and unexpectedly a seraph appears before you and she blesses you a boon that whatever you wish, it will turn to be true! What you will then desire? We got an opportunity to visit a ‘wishing well’ where our wish would come true. When we reached the well, there were millions of coins sunk in the well already.

Vivek Singh looking into 'the wishing well'

So if we put some Euros or at least some cents, then the wish will come true in a faster way. Most of the people actually wished (it seemed) to seize all that Euros from the well, oops! What a bad idea! But I wished to not put any coin into the well, surely my wish would not come true. So I stood up aside and watched what my Spanish friend would wish for! She put some Euros and wished ‘let the world ever remains in peace! I don’t think all the Europeans are very superstitions, but this wish anyway was very noble and motivational!

Dear reader, I must not start this note on wishing well, actually I was thinking to put pen to paper a bit about the famed ‘Spy Bridge’ in Berlin. But the moment I thought about the bridge this ‘wishing well’ business came to mind first. Let me make clear what this spy bridge is precisely. In my first blog post (berlin wall) I have elucidated the Berlin Wall and the countless sufferings of the people the wall made possible to them. Glienicker Brucke, popularly known as Spy Bridge articulates the same old story of two oppositional blocks which occupied the beautiful Berlin city. The eastern side of German (including Potsdam) was shared for Red Soviet Russia and the Western part was given to Britain, France and US of America. This is only a part of the story. History of the bridge actually starts a bit early. When the major towns Berlin and Potsdam flourished side by side, this bridge was constructed in 1907 in the Havel River to connect these two cities.

'the Natural Fridge'

It was broken heavily in world war second and later a major reconstruction was carried out to meet people each other. As I just mentioned above, as part of the sharing business the bridge was also shared within the four countries, USSR, USA, UK and France. The offices of spies of both sectors formed surroundings of the bridge. Spies met and made ‘friendly talk’ here. Prisoners and people were exchanged here, and it stood a bare spectator to the cold war. Literally it stood witnessed to the power sharing dealing. You look at closely the bridge; half of the bridge was painted black to declare the power of the mighty countries.

I was thinking about our Hussain Sagar of Hyderabad when I was scrutinizing the bridge. Hussain Sagar divides Secunderabad and Hyderabad and both carry the legacy of colonial past. Seconderabad was actually built to gratify French power and they made it a cantonment to establish their power in Hyderabad. All bridges are the silent witnesses of ugly business everywhere!

The bridge immediately became a symbol of spy dealing and exchanging prisoners. Thousands of poems were written on the bridge. Films, cartoons, TV serious refereed the bridge. Smiley’s People, a novel written by John Le Carre made this bridge famous by continuously referring the bridge. The popular nickname 'Bridge of Spies' was used by the British band T’Pau as the name of the title track on their first album. The usage is metaphorical, referring to a 'walk to freedom' but in the context of long dreamt-of relationship.

After visiting the spy bridge we went to the palace (not exactly to the palace, but the courtyard of Schloss Cecilienhof fortress). It was a very sunny day in a cold shivering winter. 

When the sun mercied upon us to go anywhere we wished without wearing the maddening winter jacket, then we preferred to visit the palace. It was one of the earlier journey with a group called Erasmus Students Network (ESN, Potsdam), an effort of some dynamic young (wo)men to make a get together possible within the foreign students. We are not ERASMUS students, yet we were invited.

Schloss Cecilienhof  has been built in an eye catching place of the northern part of the Neuer Garten park. When we crossed the threshold the courtyard, the birds started chirping, squirrels squeaking, and a gentle breeze slowly passed telling stories to the dancing meadows, tall and short trees agreed unanimously what the breeze brought for them, later the wind ended and merged in the nearby Jungfernsee Lake, and then a school of fish jumped expressing their joy. Flowers smiled, beautiful butterflies flied everywhere!

Between 1914 and 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II had Schloss Cecilienhof built in the north of the gardens for his son Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The use of traditional building materials such as brick and wood helps the house to blend in with its surroundings.

the red flower star was the contribution of Soviet Russia

The actual size of Schloss Cecilienhof only becomes evident upon closer inspection: the house has a total of 176 rooms. Some of them were used by the Allies in 1945 for their Potsdam Conference. Its design was based on a house called 'Biston Court' (later 'Hillbark') on the Wirral Peninsula which in turn was inspired by Little Moreton Hall. The interior was furnished according to plans by  Paul Troost, who originally had designed steamship décors.

The brick and oak timber frame building, including six courtyards and 55 carved brick chimney tops, should have been completed in 1915, but construction was delayed due to the outbreak of  World War I and Crown Prince Wilhelm and Cecilie could not move in until August 1917. 

Wilhelm followed his father into exile one year later, while Cecilie stayed at the palace until she fled from the approaching Red Army in February 1945. ! It was part of soviet Russia, so they made a beautiful Courtyard with red flower star, planted by Soviet armed forces in 1945.

There is a ‘natural fridge’ as well! When the shivering and bone chilling cold comes, the lake starts freezing completely. So the royal family made from this natural phenomenon  useful and built a pyramid shaped fridge where the icy lake water stored in the pyramid and they kept food items until the winter ends.
When we started the journey the weather was perfect and fine, but later the climate gradually changed and it became cold again.