Old Bridge (Saarbrücken)

Old bridge
	The so-called "bottleneck"
use	footbridge
Crossing of	Saar
place	Saarbrücken
construction	Arch bridge
overall length	200 m
width	7 m
completion	1546/47
	location

49.2315 6.9934166666667Coordinates: 49 ° 13 ′ 53 " N , 6 ° 59 ′ 36" E

The old bridge over the Saar in Saarbrücken is the oldest surviving bridge in Saarland . It connects St. Johann and Alt-Saarbrücken and is only open to pedestrians and cyclists.

The bridge is in the immediate vicinity of the State Theater, the St. Johann market and the Saarbrücken Castle .

It was built in 1546/47 under Count Philip II after Emperor Charles V was unable to cross the river at this point for several days due to flooding. After the Roman Bridge a little further upstream, which fell into disrepair in the early Middle Ages, the Old Bridge was the first Saar bridge in centuries. It was destroyed and rebuilt at least twice.

Old bridge, condition after 1904 with Kaiser Wilhelm monument, left and right on the St. Johanner Ufer the Bleichwiesen

In 1904, two of the middle bridge piers were lavishly expanded to make room for an equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I , which was inaugurated on May 14, 1904 in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Viktoria . The Kaiser Wilhelm monument was designed by the sculptor and Rietschel student Adolf von Donndorf from Weimar based on the model of the monument on the Hohensyburg . Donndorf got the job through good acquaintance with the Saarbrücken mayor Friedrich Wilhelm Feldmann . The monument, which cost more than 137,900 marks to build, survived the partial demolition of the bridge by fleeing German troops in 1945 and was demolished after the end of the Second World War on the orders of the French occupying forces as a symbol of Prussian militarism . The model for the positioning of the Kaiser monument on the bridge was the equestrian monument of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf over the Seine in Paris and the equestrian statue of the Great Elector on the former Long Bridge over the Spree near Berlin Palace .

On the St. Johann side of the bridge, several of the original 14 arches were lost or filled in due to the construction of the Ministry of Finance and the construction of what is now called Tbilisi (or Tbilisi). On the old Saarbrücken side, too, an arch was lost in the course of straightening the Saar around 1763. Conversely, when the city motorway (originally: B 406, today: A 620 ) was built from 1961 to 1963 on the old Saarbrücken side, the bridge was extended by a steel footbridge, which spanned the motorway at towpath level. The castle wall, built by Friedrich Joachim Stengel and delimiting the castle rock, was set back 17 meters on this occasion and the directly adjacent, historic Oberamtshaus , also built by Stengel, was demolished to make room for the Franz-Josef-Röder- Strasse, which also serves as a flood bypass for the city motorway to win, to which the old bridge is connected on its south side. In the course of the Saar Canalization , decided in 1973, the old bridge was almost demolished, as the passage heights and widths of the bridge arches are not sufficient for European ships . In the end, however, it was decided not to expand the Saar development to the Saarbrücken Osthafen as originally planned.

The bridge is depicted on a definitive stamp from 1922, the stamps for " Stamp Day " 1951 and on a special stamp from 1973.

Stamp Day from 1951
Special stamp from 1973
Kaiser Wilhelm I monument on the Old Bridge by sculptor Adolf von Donndorf around 1904

Web links

Commons : Alte Brücke - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature on Alte Brücke (Saarbrücken) in the Saarland Bibliography

Individual evidence

^ Karl August Schleiden: Illustrated History of the City of Saarbrücken, Dillingen / Saar 2009, p. 370.
^ Saarbrücken City Archives, Volume 6 (St. Johann), Numbers 23, 35, 37.
↑ Rolf Wittenbrock: The three Saar cities in the time of accelerated urban growth (1860-1908), in: ders. (Ed.): Geschichte der Stadt Saarbrücken, Vol. 2, Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 11-130, there p. 28 -33.
↑ http://www.memotransfront.uni-saarland.de/wilhelm_saarbruecken.shtml , accessed on June 17, 2015.
↑ So the old bridge lost arch by arch
^ Saarbrücken Waterways and Shipping Office: History of the Saar ( Memento from June 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Landmarks in the water - The story of the "Alt Brigg" between St. Johann and Alt-Saarbrücken

[1] Karl August Schleiden: Illustrated History of the City of Saarbrücken, Dillingen / Saar 2009, p. 370.

[2] Saarbrücken City Archives, Volume 6 (St. Johann), Numbers 23, 35, 37.

[3] Rolf Wittenbrock: The three Saar cities in the time of accelerated urban growth (1860-1908), in: ders. (Ed.): Geschichte der Stadt Saarbrücken, Vol. 2, Saarbrücken 1999, pp. 11-130, there p. 28 -33.

[4] ttp://www.memotransfront.uni-saarland.de/wilhelm_saarbruecken.shtml , accessed on June 17, 2015.

[5] So the old bridge lost arch by arch

[6] Saarbrücken Waterways and Shipping Office: History of the Saar ( Memento from June 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

[7] Landmarks in the water - The story of the "Alt Brigg" between St. Johann and Alt-Saarbrücken