Johannes Bridge (Düren)
The Johannesbrücke (formerly also called Nepomukbrücke ) in Düren , North Rhine-Westphalia , leads over the Rur .
Today's Aachener Straße, at that time classified as Reichsstraße 264, the street name went from the wooden gate at Pleußmühle or Wallstraße to the border of the then independent municipality of Rölsdorf . The expansion of Aktienstraße, which was to lead from Düren to Aachen , began in 1822. On the western side of the Johannesbrücke there was a barrier with a turnpike, where you had to pay a toll to finance the costs of the expansion and the subsequent maintenance with the income.
Originally, ie until the middle of the 18th century, Düren had only a small wooden bridge as a river crossing over the Roer (Rur) on the site of today's Johannesbrücke. Originally, they wanted to replace the small bridge with another, more stable wooden bridge. The plan was later rejected.
On October 23, 1747, the foundation stone was laid for the first stone bridge in Düren. The design came from the engineer from Douwen, it was built under the direction of an engineer Mausfeld.
The total construction costs at that time amounted to 80,000 Reichstaler , with the largest part of the construction costs being paid by the then mayor Anton Ricker from private funds. A cornerstone reminded of this. The inscription “sub consule Ricker” was written deep in the foundation stone below the bridge.
Mayor Ricker had lost almost all of his fortune because he had put his private money into building the bridge. He was mayor of Düren in 1740 and 1750 and owner of Birgel Castle from 1733. After the bridge was completed, on 23 August 1753, the figure of St. from Koblenz sculptor Franz Joseph Schmiegd was erected. John of Nepomuk .
The total length of the Johannesbrücke at that time was 65 meters and it had five arches with a span of 11 meters each. The two-meter-thick pillars and the abutments were made of limestone and red sandstone , the vaults were made of brick .
On the night of December 29th to 30th, 1845, the bridge was badly damaged by floods and drift ice and the vaults collapsed.
A part of the eastern Johannesbrücke was blown up before the capture of Düren by American troops, presumably by German troops themselves between December 7th and December 16th 1944 in order to make the invasion of American troops more difficult. On February 25, 1945, the American troops invading Düren - after the bridge itself had been partially destroyed - but a wooden bridge had been built on the still existing bridge piers - in Düren.
On May 16, 1950, the newly built Johannesbrücke was inaugurated by the then finance minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Heinrich Weitz . The new reinforced concrete bridge had three openings. Their total width was 15.10 meters, the construction costs amounted to 385,000 marks (197,000 euros). Most of them were paid for by the state government. At the same time, the bridge also got a new statue of Nepomuk, which was created by the Düsseldorf sculptor Kurt Zimmermann and which also adorns the last new bridge in 2016. At the foot of the bridge saint, like on many other bridges in Europe, love locks are attached, which lovers hang up there.
Over the years the bridge had become fragile. In 2003 a makeshift bridge was built next to the structure, so that the new construction could begin next to it. On September 24, 2003, the old bridge collapsed into the Rur without any external influence. The inauguration of the new bridge took place on December 21, 2004.
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- Chronicle of the city of Düren / since 2001
- Düren newspaper from 1932
- Yearbook of the Düren district
- Düren history sheets, published by the Düren history association
- Documents from the Düren City and District Archives (PDF; 191 kB)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kölnische Rundschau of May 16, 1950
Coordinates: 50 ° 47 ′ 44.6 " N , 6 ° 28 ′ 27.1" E