Heller Bridge (Hanau)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

On the Hellerbrücke , the Philippsruher Allee in Hanau crosses the Kinzig .

Historic bridge

prehistory

For strategic military reasons, there was only one Kinzig bridge in front of the Hanau Fortress until the early modern period . Important long-distance trade routes, the trade routes Frankfurt am Main - Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main - Nuremberg, passed through them . This bridge, initially made of wood, from 1559 a stone arch bridge, was located in front of the Hanau suburb and was strongly secured by a bridge tower, the Margaret Tower, from 1615.

The demand for pedestrians to cross the Kinzig in the west of Hanau in other places was not met for a long time. Only for the upstream village of Kesselstadt was an easy-to-remove pontoon bridge built - and not until 1713 . It was not until the needs of the sovereign that the military concerns finally receded.

Baroque bridge

history

With the construction of Philippsruhe Castle by Count Philipp Reinhard von Hanau , he also wanted avenues leading to the castle . The Philippsruher Allee represented the axis between the city of Hanau and the face of the castle near Kesselstadt. The avenue also had to cross the Kinzig, for which the Hellerbrücke was built in 1716 and replaced the pontoon bridge.

Legal disputes with Kurmainz , which was on the other side of the Main, which formed the border with the county of Hanau-Munzenberg , delayed the completion of the avenue. Mainz feared that the embankment of Philippsruher Allee would lead to flooding in the Kurmainzer area. It was not until 1767 that the Hereditary Prince Wilhelm succeeded in settling the dispute and completing the road. Only now did the bridge also have a regional traffic significance. The authorities demanded a fee of one Heller from passers-by who were heading towards Kesselstadt , which gave the bridge its name. Instead, there was a small house on the city side for those who took the toll.

description

The Hellerbrücke spanned the Kinzig with three arches, which flows a few meters further into the Main . The bridge narrowed it by a few meters to just under 29 m. The core of the bridge consisted of masonry basalt rubble with earth backfilling. Bridge arches and abutments, however, were clad with red sandstone and otherwise lightly plastered. The parapet also originally consisted of light-colored plastered masonry with a sandstone cover. In terms of color, the bridge was matched to the Philippsruhe Palace. The bridge piers were protected from floating debris and ice by massive, pointed stone works.

Conversions

After the bridge had served traffic for 150 years, its substance and appearance were modified for the first time in 1958. The growing car traffic made it necessary to widen the roadway. For this purpose, pedestrian traffic was relocated to a newly constructed concrete bridge immediately north of the historic bridge. The historic parapet was removed and replaced by a wrought-iron railing that was identical to that of the Wilhelmsbrücke . In the 1990s, a 60 - 90 cm thick sewer pipe was hung in front of the view on the mains side, which was supported by a steel beam in front. And all of this, although it was a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

The historic bridge was demolished in 1992 because it was said to be in disrepair. The monument protection authorities were only able to ensure that the structure was fully documented before and during the demolition. When it was demolished, it turned out that the bridge was still completely stable and could have been renovated with far less financial outlay than that required for the subsequent new construction.

Today's bridge

The bridge was rebuilt in 1992 as a three-arched concrete bridge. The new Hellerbrücke is 42 m long and continues to serve Philippsruher Allee ( Landesstraße L 3328). Since it is located in the urban area of ​​Hanau, there is a maximum speed of 50 km / h. There are footpaths and bicycle paths on both sides of the road. Bronze plaques were set into the wall of the parapets, enlarged to show coins - including a Heller.

literature

  • Karl-Eberhard Feußner: The baroque Heller Bridge . In: New Magazine for Hanau History 1994, pp. 16–26.
  • Richard Schaffer-Hartmann: On penny and penny… . In: Our money. From the Roman denarius to the euro, 2000 years of monetary history = city time 4. Hanau 2001. ISBN 3-9806988-3-1 , p. 72f.
  • Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau city and country. Peters Verlag, Hanau 1978, ISBN 3-87627-243-2 (reprint of the Hanau edition 1919).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ In Hanau at that time the Frankfurt currency was used, which calculated in Gulden , Albus and Hellern (Schaffer-Hartmann, p. 72).
  2. ↑ The documentation is kept in the Hanau City Archives (Feußner, p. 22).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Zimmerman, p. 750.
  2. ↑ Feussner, p. 18.
  3. ↑ Schaffer-Hertmann, p. 72; Feussner, p. 20.
  4. ↑ a b c Feussner, p. 20.
  5. ↑ a b Feussner, p. 22.
  6. ↑ a b Schaffer-Hartmann, p. 73.
  7. ^ Hellerbrücke in streets in Germany.

Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 48.2 ″  N , 8 ° 54 ′ 10 ″  E