Liebknecht Bridge

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 7 ″  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 6 ″  E

Liebknecht Bridge
View of the Humboldt Box , 2013
use	Road traffic
Convicted	Lustgarten , Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse
Crossing of	Spree
place	Berlin center
Building number	68895
construction	Frame bridge
overall length	about 60.00 m
width	22.20 m
Clear height	4.30 m
vehicles per day	650 trucks 22,600 vehicles
start of building	August 22, 1949
completion	April 29, 1950
location

The Liebknecht Bridge (also Karl Liebknecht Bridge , Kavalier Bridge until 1889 , Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge until 1949 ) over the Spree in the Berlin district of Mitte connects the Lustgarten with Karl-Liebknecht-Straße . Originated in the late 17th century, it has been renewed several times throughout history. The current bridge was built in the years 1949–1950.

history

Cavalier Bridge

View of the Cavalier Bridge from the west, with the Holy Spirit Quarter behind it , 1875

The first fixed Spree crossing at the site of today's bridge was built at the end of the 17th century as a wooden pedestrian bridge. It connected the Lustgarten with the Kleine Burgstrasse in the Alt-Cölln area and was first called the Burgbrücke . After the completion of the Kavalierhaus at the castle, the wooden structure was given the name Kavalierbrücke . According to a contemporary report that has been handed down, this bridge collapsed in 1709 due to a large crowd, killing 40 people with it. After a makeshift repair, the bridge parts were torn down in 1771 and all traffic was via the neighboring Friedrichsbrücke or the Rathausbrücke .

In the 1830s, the master carpenter Steinmeyer founded a stock corporation to finance the construction of a new bridge. The new cavalier bridge was built from cast iron columns with a wooden superstructure and was completed in 1832. It was 130  feet (50 meters) long, four meters wide, and spanned the river in a shallow arch. Numerous fence-like segments formed the railing. Pedestrians could now cross the Spree again, but they had to pay a “ six ” as a bridge toll, which is why it was also called the Six Bridge. For the construction of the Berlin Cathedral , the western part of this bridge was demolished in 1845 and made accessible again by means of a sloping wooden structure.

Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge

View of the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge from the north, with the castle behind it , around 1900

View from the east, behind it the cathedral , around 1900

The bridge stood like this for forty years, until Kaiser Wilhelm I approved the construction of a magnificent bridge for the city of Berlin in 1884. The bridge was essential for the connection of the representative and 26 meter wide Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße between Lustgarten and Spandauer Straße, which was laid through old Berlin . In February 1886, construction work began on the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge , for which granite was selected as the building material and marble and copper as decorative elements. Due to financial and structural problems (earlier foundations of the cathedral had to be removed), completion dragged on until autumn 1889. Three stone vaults spanned the Spree, on the front of the central arch figurative representations on both sides formed the allegories of war and peace, which came from Eduard Lürssen's workshop . Bronze figures were placed on the bridge obelisks and four 1.75 meters high bronze bear heads were placed on the pedestals. Since the carriages with their large, heavy wheels made noise for the castle residents, the bridge deck was paved with wood.

During the time of National Socialism , urban planning for the world capital Germania led to the demolition of the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge from March 1939. Their width no longer corresponded to the expansion plans for a broad east-west connection through the center of Berlin. Due to limited transport capacities, perhaps also due to a lack of male specialists and other priorities, the demolition could not be completed completely. The bronze reliefs with bears on the obelisks, other decorative reliefs and the sculptures on the bridge piers were removed for the purpose of melting down (“ metal donation of the German people ”) and were taken to a smelter in Gießen . Local workers refused to be destroyed, so most of the bronze figures were initially taken to a warehouse. When the smelter had to cease operations in 1945, the owners sold the stored materials. This is how the bears came to the United States. A wooden makeshift bridge made pedestrian traffic possible until 1944, and in the spring of 1945 German troops blew up all parts of the bridge.

Today's bridge

Historical bronze bear

View of the Liebknechtbrücke from the south, behind it the Palasthotel , 1985

View from the east, on the left the Palace of the Republic , 1991

After the end of the Battle of Berlin and the occupation of the city by the Red Army , the Soviet military administration had a wooden bridge erected again for pedestrians. The new construction of a permanent bridge as an east-west road connection began in 1949. The two stone edge vaults could be restored as a supporting structure, the larger middle segment was designed as a rectangular steel frame construction. In a record construction time of nine months, the engineers and construction workers created a structure in the form of the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge, but without Prussian emblem and using contemporary building materials. The new Spree crossing was named Liebknechtbrücke or Karl-Liebknecht-Brücke in honor of Karl Liebknecht . Liebknecht, who had had a law practice nearby, crossed the bridge on November 9, 1918 on the way to the City Palace , where he proclaimed the Free Socialist Republic of Germany . The construction of the Palace of the Republic in place of the blown up and demolished castle in 1975 required reinforcement and leveling of the bridge surface, for which a reinforced concrete slab was placed underneath. After the completion of the Palace of the Republic, a riverside path runs through the northern stone vault, which was extended to the Friedrichsbrücke during the construction of the DomAquarée in the early 2000s.

After the political change , the Senate learned of the existence of the historical bridge bears and was able to arrange a return to Berlin. At the same time, the Liebknechtbrücke was renovated with funds from the city administration. This work was carried out in the period from 1995 to 2000 with moving traffic and ensure the continued use of the structure. In 1997 the historic bronze bears of the former Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge were attached to the bridge piers of the Liebknecht Bridge and unveiled in a ceremonial act by the then American Ambassador John Kornblum and the Governing Mayor Eberhard Diepgen . In 2010, three more original bronze reliefs of the Kaiser Wilhelm Bridge were found in Giessen , which have since been returned to the Senate. After restoration, they will soon decorate the Liebknecht Bridge.

The bridge lies on the route of the federal highways B 2 and B 5 . In the area of ​​the historic center of Berlin , the Liebknechtbrücke is part of one of the most important traffic arteries and is therefore correspondingly frequented. To relieve traffic on the Schloßplatz and also the Liebknechtbrücke after the completion of the new palace building, there is a discussion proposal by the ADAC , which provides for the relocation of the main road over the former Burgstrasse and the Rathausbrücke.

literature

• Ruth Glatzer: Berliner Leben, 1870–1900: Memories and Reports , Rütten & Loening, 1963; 486 pp.
• Wolfgang Schneider, Wolfgang Gottschalk: Berlin: a cultural history in pictures and documents , Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1983; 415 pp.
• The architectural and art monuments of the GDR , Berlin, I; Edited by the Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, p. 191; Berlin 1984.
• Hans-Jürgen Mende, Kurt Wernicke, Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weisspflug: Berlin Mitte: das Lexikon , Stapp Verlag Berlin, 2001, 808 pages, ISBN 3-87776-111-9 .
• Eckhard Thiemann, Dieter Deszyk, Horstpeter Metzing: Berlin and his bridges , Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2003, pp. 57–59; ISBN 3-89773-073-1 .

Web links

Commons : Liebknechtbrücke  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Kathrin Chod, Herbert Schwenk, Hainer Weisspflug: Liebknechtbrücke . In: Hans-Jürgen Mende , Kurt Wernicke (ed.): Berliner Bezirkslexikon, Mitte . Luisenstadt educational association . Haude and Spener / Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89542-111-1 ( luise-berlin.de - as of October 7, 2009).
• Data and images on the Liebknecht Bridge - Structurae

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Traffic volumes for trucks 2014 (PDF) 2014 road traffic census as of October 16, 2015 (pdf)
2. ↑ Traffic volume map DTV 2014: vehicles in 24 hours
3. ↑ Thiemann, Deszyk, Metzing: Berlin und seine Brücken , p. 57
4. ↑ For the planning and building history, see Benedikt Goebel: The conversion of old Berlin into a modern city center. Planning, building and ownership history of the historic Berlin city center in the 19th and 20th centuries , Verlagshaus Braun, Berlin 2003, pp. 128–148, here p. 136
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Bernd DW Unger: The Berlin Bear . A journey through history and the present. Waxmann Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-89325-990-2 , p. 45 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 25, 2016]).
6. ↑ Information from Mr. Michas, employee at the Berlin Land Monument Office, 1998 in a seminar for city guides
7. ↑ Claudia Fuchs: Construction sites everywhere - the traffic chaos remains. In: Berliner Zeitung , September 6, 1995; Retrieved March 17, 2009
8. ↑ Bronze reliefs back in Berlin . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 3, 2010; P. 18 and
   Lothar Heinke : Valuable bridge parts rediscovered after 70 years. In: Der Tagesspiegel , December 3, 2010.
9. ↑ ADAC traffic proposal; Retrieved March 17, 2009