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With polished helmets, white gloves and presented carbines, a dozen US soldiers stood on the trellis on the eastern part of Glienicke Bridge, which belongs to West Berlin.

A US Army transporter, flanked by two service limousines, rolled from Potsdam to Zehlendorf on March 25, 1985.

On the loading area was a coffin containing the body of the last US soldier who died on the floor of the GDR.

It was a confrontation like the worst of the Cold War.

The day before, Major Arthur D. Nicholson, an experienced officer in the US Army Intelligence Service, and his driver Jessie Schatz had set out on one of the usual reconnaissance tours into the GDR.

As members of the US military liaison mission in Potsdam, they had something like a “license to spy”, explains the historian and curator of the Berlin Allied Museum Bernd von Kostka.

Admittedly, that was not really intended.

In 1946, the four victorious powers of World War II had agreed to set up liaison missions to instill trust - but the outbreak of the Cold War that soon broke out showed that such confidence-building measures were somewhat superfluous.

Major Arthur D. Nicholson was the last US soldier to die in the GDR in March 1985

Source: Allied Museum Berlin / USMLM

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Although the Soviets cut West Berlin off supplies from the western zones of Germany for eleven months in 1948/49, approved the fortification of the inner-German border by the GDR in 1952 and the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the 1946 agreement remained in force.

But the missions had little to do with their original purpose.

Since they were guaranteed freedom of movement with a few exceptions, the members of the military missions now legally carried out educational work.

Usually in teams of two or three, they drove converted cars near military bases and documented, among other things, the number and type of tanks, unit numbers and starting or landing combat machines at military airports.

The Soviet military mission in the Federal Republic could work practically unhindered.

In the more than 40 years of its existence there has not been a single exchange of fire, not even seriously injured or even fatalities from alleged or actual accidents.

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In contrast, the Red Army and the Stasi in the GDR tried to restrict the scope of the American, British and French missions, all three of which were based in Potsdam.

Several fatal incidents occurred.

Around March 22, 1984, when an NVA truck flattened a vehicle belonging to the French mission.

The driver, Philippe Mariotti, was killed and his two companions were seriously injured.

Arthur Nicholson, of course, knew this case.

He was therefore cautious with Jessie Schatz when they arrived on March 24, 1985 at a tank firing range of the Red Army in Techentin in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Members of the military liaison mission had already been shot at here.

The two US soldiers drove to the edge of the tank training area and took out their cameras.

Nicholson opened the roof hatch of the Mercedes SUV to get a better view of the hall with the Soviet vehicles.

Then he got out of the car.

With military honors, on March 29, 1985, US soldiers load Major Arthur Nicholson's coffin into a transport plane for the flight to Washington

Source: US military or Department of Defense

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Suddenly he saw a Soviet guard running towards him with Kalashnikovs at the ready.

First this man, apparently Sergeant Alexander Ryabtsev, shot at Schatz.

The driver immediately reset his car to get out of the danger zone.

But then two more shots lashed out.

Nicholson was hit and fatally injured.

When Schatz, who was born in Offenbach, wanted to take care of his superior, the Red Army soldier prevented him from doing so by force of arms.

Nicholson died without first aid.

On the night of March 25, 1985, the chief of the US military mission, Colonel Roland Lajoie, arrived at the scene.

Instead of hearing an apology from the Soviet officers, however, he was confronted with allegations.

An icy mood spread.

The cold war, which eleven days after Mikhail Gorbachev's appointment as CPSU general secretary, had already begun to thaw slightly, cooled down again.

Lajoie made sure that Major Nicholson's body was brought from the GDR to West Berlin as quickly as possible, from where it was flown to the USA.

His wife and daughter, who was almost nine years old, were waiting for the coffin at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC

The gravestone for Arthur D. Nicholson has been in Arlington National Cemetery since 1985, and a memorial stone at the crime scene since 2005 (right)

Source: Concord / Wikimedia license CC-BY-SA 4.0, Niteshift /

Nicholson was buried in the US Arlington Cemetery.

His gravestone reads: "Killed in East Germany" - "Killed in East Germany".

In fact, according to Jessie Schatz's testimony, Nicholson had done nothing that could have provoked the Soviet post in any way.

Sergeant Ryabtsev, the shooter, never spoke to Western authorities.

He was undoubtedly questioned by the Soviet Military Intelligence Service (GRU) and the KGB, but detailed information about it never leaked.

There is a memorial stone at the crime scene today.

After the considerable resentment between the two sides, protracted negotiations ensued, but they did not lead to anything.

The military liaison missions continued to work until 1990 - it was only with the two-plus-four treaty that the privileges of these legal spies ended.

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Bernd von Kostka praises your role as "noteworthy".

According to the Cold War expert, the missions were “also an instrument for defusing conflicts”.

The death of Arthur D. Nicholson, however, was one of several tragic exceptions.

This article was first published in 2015.