Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge (Trier)

View from the Weisshaus observation deck

View at night from Martinsufer, over the bridge the Trier University and at the very top the Hotel Kockelsberg

The Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge in the city of Trier spans the Moselle river .

Location

The bridge connects the districts of Trier-Mitte / Gartenfeld and Trier-Nord, east of the Moselle, with the western district of Trier-West / Pallien . On the eastern bank is the former St. Martin Abbey on Georg-Schmitt-Platz and the steep street of Bitburger Straße joins on the western bank.

construction

On the western side, the bridge crosses road traffic first over the lower Bonner Straße and a railway line, then in two large arches over the main shipping channel. In the middle of the river there is a bridge pillar on the Moselle island, which is completely protected. Two more bridge arches span the small arm of the Moselle and the Moselle cycle path on the east bank. The road traffic there is led to Georg-Schmitt-Platz.

history

The construction of a second Moselle bridge in Trier has been called for by various parties since the 1870s, but initially it was not possible to agree on a location. Because of its importance for the landscape and cityscape, a competition was announced before the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge was built; the designs received included a steel suspension bridge , which was not allowed to be carried out out of consideration for the landscape. Based on the winning design by Paul Meissner in Darmstadt , the bridge was built in 1912 and inaugurated in 1913, which is documented by early film recordings. The bridge is a reinforced concrete construction that was faced with natural stone so as not to create a contrast to the Roman bridge and the historical buildings in the vicinity. An originally planned sculpture on one of the bridge piers was not carried out. In 1945 the German Wehrmacht blew up the bridge while in retreat, after the war it was rebuilt and slightly widened by a cantilever .

Transport-related importance

The bridge was built as the second Moselle crossing in Trier after the Römerbrücke and connects the federal highway 49 east of the Moselle with the federal highway 51 west of the Moselle. It was not until 1973 that a third bridge was added, the Konrad-Adenauer-Brücke .

literature

Schilling: The new Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge in Trier . In: Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung , vol. 33, 1913, pp. 549–553 ( digitized version of the Central and State Library Berlin ).