Stephanibrücke

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Stephanibrücke; View down the Weser
Stephanibrücke; above cars, including cyclists and pedestrians, as well as utility lines

The Stephanibrücke leads in the Mitte district of Bremen over the Weser from the Stephaniviertel to the Neustadt.

The bridge is part of a high-speed car road on federal highway 6 (B6) and federal highway 75 (B75), which leads north past Utbremen and Findorff to the A 27 motorway , junction Überseestadt. To the south, past the Bremer Neustadt and Huchting, the city of Delmenhorst is reached.

Two outside bicycle and footpaths in the lower construction level accompany the road.

Older Weser bridges in Bremen city center

The first Weser crossing in Bremen existed since 1244. Over the centuries several replacement buildings followed at the same place, since 1841 the Great Weser Bridge . A little later it was built below the Great Weser Bridge , which was popularly known as the Börsenbrücke . Weser downward followed 1865/66 for the railway Bremen-Oldenburg a swing bridge after destruction by the Bremer Eiskatastrophe in March 1947, first through a temporary and then in the early 1960s by the Bremen Rail Bridge was replaced. In the course of the expansion of Kaiserstraße (today Mayor-Smidt-Straße ), the Kaiserbrücke - today Mayor-Smidt-Bridge - was completed.

Road bridge in the northwest of the old town

Around 100 m upstream of the railway bridge, the West Bridge was built from 1936 to 1939 for road traffic as well as for line 15 of the Bremen tram , which was inaugurated in 1939 under the name Adolf Hitler Bridge . It had a lane width of 11.50 meters, with a 1.50 meter bike path and a 3 meter footpath on both sides. It was destroyed on March 30, 1945 during the air raids on Bremen . Only the concrete pillars survived the war. A “war bridge” was planned as a replacement during the Second World War , but it could no longer be realized.

In the Weser, in 1946, between the remains of the former Adolf Hitler Bridge for shipping, a widening was made and all rubble was largely removed by 1947, only the pillars remained. A much narrower west bridge with a carriageway width of seven meters and a footpath of 1.50 meters on each side was built on these pillars and inaugurated on December 31, 1947. After the neighboring old Stephaniviertel and the nearby Stephanikirche it was named Stephanibrücke . The tram track that existed before the war was not rebuilt. Line 15 of the Bremen tram ended on the Neustadt side directly in front of the bridge and was withdrawn to the Neustadtsbahnhof in 1950 due to a lack of passenger demand.

In the 1960s, the 196 m long bridge was renewed and significantly widened. First in 1965 the new, western half of the bridge structure (superstructure Oberstrom) was completed from continuous steel girders. Then the old bridge was demolished in 1966 and the eastern half was rebuilt from the end of 1966 to 1967. The connecting structures could also be completed by mid-1968. This completed the western part of the planned ring road around the city center.

In the meantime (2017) the signs of material fatigue on the structure are so advanced that traffic restrictions for trucks and narrowing of the sidewalks and bike paths threaten. As a first measure to reduce the statically calculated weight, a site fence was erected in August 2017, which narrowed the footpath and bike path.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arkivi picture agency: Photo with the title Bremen, Grosse Weserbrücke (Börsenbrücke) 137 m long, 17 m wide
  2. ↑ a b Testimony of Bremen's will to build up - on the last day of the year: consecration of the Stephanibrücke, Weser-Kurier of December 31, 1947, p. 3, online only for subscribers
  3. ↑ Weserkurier May 30th, 2017: Stephanibrücke is ailing
  4. ↑ Weserkurier 06/18/2017: Conditions for traffic on the Stephanibrücke


Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 48.8 "  N , 8 ° 47 ′ 26.2"  E