Alte Brücke (German: "old bridge") is a bridge in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is the oldest bridge over the lower course of the river Main, and until 1886 was the only stone bridge crossing the river. From the Middle Ages until the year 1914, it connected the "Fahrgasse" in Frankfurt Altstadt with the "Brückenstraße" in Sachsenhausen. Since its first mention in official documents in 1222, the development of Frankfurt has been strongly influenced by the bridge. Over the centuries, Alte Brücke has been destroyed and reconstructed at least 18 times. With its 13 brick-built circular arches, the Sachsenhausen Bridge was one of the most prominent buildings of the city, but failing to meet the increasing demands of the modern road and ship traffic, it was demolished in 1914.
The current Alte Brücke, sometimes called "Neue Alte Brücke" (German: "new old bridge"), was inaugurated on 15 August 1926 by then-Lord-Mayor Ludwig Landmann. Two of its originally eight red sandstone-lined vaults were blown up by German soldiers on 26 March 1945. After an initial provisional reconstruction, the middle part of the bridge was replaced by a steel through truss bridge and placed in operation again on 15 September 1965.
In 2006, the Alte Brücke received a new porticus, which resembles a watermill that had historically been present at the bridge. Today, the view of the bridge is characterized by four portal walls at both sides of the bridge's middle part. These have been built in the course of a complete renovation in 2014. Landmarks of the Alte Brücke are the "Brickegickel" and a statue of Charlemagne, mythical founder of the city.
History
11th – 14th century
Originally there was a ford (German: Furt) near the Alte Brücke, possibly slightly downstream near the , giving the city its name. It is unclear exactly when the first bridge between Frankfurt and Sachsenhausen was built. Sachsenhausen's first mention in historic records was in 1193. The first known mention of the bridge was in 1222 in the records of Frankfurt Cathedral, referring to a "burgage plot at the bridge" ("Hofstätte an der Brücke") belonging to a magistrate named Nikolaus. However, the bridge might be older than this: Chronicler Achilles Augustus von Lersner, who lived in Frankfurt, wrote at the beginning of the 18th century:
In the 19th century the historian Johann Georg Battonn said:
This assumption is now considered to be improbable. The oldest medieval stone bridge, the Drususbrücke in Bingen, was built in the 11th century. Larger stone bridges like those in Regensburg, Prag and Würzburg were built after the 12th century. This indicates that the bridge in Frankfurt was actually built of wood in the 11th century or the early 12th century, as stated by von Lersner, and that it was rebuilt after 1192 — possibly on the orders of Ministeralis Kuno von Münzenberg, who owned large properties on both sides of the river. The rebuilt bridge, according to earliest documents, was built partly of wood, with pillars made of stone. A "stone bridge" in the Frankfurt region does not appear in historical documents until 1276.
In the 1920s, a row of oak poles became visible at low water level upstream of the bridge. This led to speculation that the poles were from an old Roman bridge. However, it is more likely that these poles were of medieval origin and had been used for fishing or flood protection.
During the 12th and 13th century, Frankfurt grew to one of the most important trading centres of the Holy Roman Empire, not least because of the importance of its bridge, which for centuries was a major part of the north–south travel route of the Main region. On 10 May 1235, King Henry (VII) of Germany granted substantial privileges to the citizens of the city. Half of the Frankfurt coin revenue, and timber from the royal hunting forest of Wildbann Dreieich, was assigned to the maintenance of the bridge. There is also document from 1300, in which 15 Italian bishops promised indulgences to those who supported the maintenance of Alte Brücke with their donations.
In the 14th century the bridge was destroyed by floods and melting ice many times:
The two bridge towers were mentioned for the first time in this report. On 22 July 1342, the most severe flood in Central Europe up to that date occurred. It is known as the St. Mary Magdalene's flood. In the course of the flood, the 1338 Chapel of St. Catherine and a bridge tower collapsed. These were both on the Sachsenhausen side of the Main, which was more strongly exposed to the water currents. Between the time of the flood until the Reformation, in the 16th century, an atonement procession from the Alte Brücke to the Weißfrauenkirche church was held annually on 22 July.Lersner, Chronica, S. 532f.
15th – 18th century
In the beginning of the 15th century, 10 of the 13 bridge arches as well as the two bridge towers were fundamentally renovated. The accountable architect might have been Madern Gerthener, who personally vouched for the safety of the vaults and arches in front of the (city?) council on 30 November 1399. On a hiking trip in Prague, Gerthener learned about the Charles Bridge, which had been built shortly before by Peter Parler. The oldest depiction of this bridge comes from 1405: It is shown in stylized form in the "Bedebuch" (burnt in World War II), with the two towers, three arches and the crucifix of the Brickegickel. The oldest complete drawing can be found in the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster, as a part of the birds-eye view of Frankfurt, in the second issue from 1550. It is a woodcut which itself is dated 1545. Shortly thereafter, in 1552, another depiction appeared on the so-called "Belagerungsplan" (besiegement plan) of Conrad Faber von Creuznach, who had already sketched the bridge in the background of his double portrait of Anna and Gilbrecht von Holzhausen in 1535. It shows the bridge during the three-week besiegement of the Protestant city by an army of the Protestant prince, under lead of the Prince-elector Maurice, Elector of Saxony in the summer of 1552, when it was defended by the Imperial Army. During this time, the bridge had been covered by cloths, and the Main had been rendered impassable by sunken ships and an iron chain. The besiegement started on 17 July and ended with the conclusion of the Peace of Passau contract on 2 August. For the city, the loyalty to the imperator paid off well: Beginning with 1562, all coronations of the Holy Roman Emperor took place in Frankfurt.
In the early 17th century, the last wooden pillar of the bridge, located north of the bridge mill, was replaced by a stone equivalent. However, the ceiling of the bridge still consisted of wooden bars which could be removed quickly to prevent passing of the bridge.
The bridge had a width of 31 feet (about 9 m), including the bridge parapet made of stone, which had been one foot wide each. The highest arch, when the water level was at a normal state, was about 30 feet (8.50 m) above the water; the other arches had been 2–3 feet lower in comparison. The horizontal clearance below the bridge, between two arches, had been between 7.50 m and 9 m. The street on top of the bridge was only about 4.70 m wide, just enough to allow passing of two vehicles next to each other. The footpaths had been so small that they had to be declared one-way paths: pedestrians had to take the path on the right side, relative to their walking direction.
In the Thirty Years' War, as well, the bridge had been the stage of a shooting war. In August 1635, imperial troops attacked Swedes who had occupied Sachsenhausen and entrenched themselves in the bridge mill as well as in the Sachsenhausen bridge tower. During the fight, the bridge mill caught fire. It was later replaced by two new buildings.
At the end of the 17th, and at the beginning of the 18th century, the material condition of the bridge became increasingly worse over time. Again and again, floods and melted ice hit the bridge and damaged it, and repair attempts did not completely fix the problems. In 1739, the council mandated that the bridge must not be burdened with more than 50 hundredweight at a time. This measure did not prevent a collapse of the bridge's cross arch on 16 December 1739, which also caused the Brickegickel to be lost. The two adjacent arches, the "Flößerbogen" and the "Ausschüttbogen", used to toss garbage into the Main, have also been severely damaged.
The council then decided to completely rebuild the bridge. The construction was to be managed by Johann Friedrich von Uffenbach. Firstly, a temporary wooden bridge was created, which stood in good stead during the coronation of emperor Charles VII. The foundation for the new stone bridge was laid on 18 September 1741; the keystone was set on 14 September 1744. In 1748, the bridge was paved; afterwards, it received a representative sandstone parapet. The portals on the path down to the Main island have been decorated by sandstone reliefs of the river god Moenus, and by two Kanonesteppels, a caricaturesque depiction of two artillerists. The relief was lost in World War II.
On 27 February 1784, the bridge was again damaged by melted ice.
During the War of the Sixth Coalition, on 31 October 1813, French troops, supposed to be defending the city, engaged in a violent battle against Bavarian and Austrian soldiers, who approached the bridge from Sachsenhausen. Again, both bridge mills became victims of the flames. The French troops were forced to retreat, but managed to escape from being chased by the allied troops by removing the wooden bars over the two middle bridge arches, rendering the bridge impassable one more time. In 1840, the bridge arches were finally connected by stones.
19th century
Unchanged by the rebuilding, the bridge still had a disadvantageous proportion of the opening width of the arches (172.17 m) compared to the complete bridge length of 264.87 metres. This caused ice jams upstream of the bridge in almost every winter. As an attempt to solve the problem, ice breakers had been added to the bridge pillars, but these turned out to be a collision danger for passing ships and were subsequently removed. Further complicating the situation, the small, long arch passages stood slightly angular to the direction of the water current, causing strong turbulences. Kolks and underminings lead to recurring damage to the bridge. Reports of the city construction manager Johann Friedrich Christian Hess from the years 1816 to 1844 noted the desolate state of the bridge pillars, and mentioned cracks with sizes up to 10 inches (0.25 m) each. Maintenance attempts of the persistently damaged bridge in the years 1825 to 1859 caused construction costs of about 230,000 Guilders.Volker Rödel: Ingenieurbaukunst in Frankfurt am Main 1806–1914, Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1983, , S. 170f.
In 1848, a second bridge, the Main-Neckar Railway, was built over the Main. In 1869, the "Eiserner Steg", a pedestrian bridge, followed. Nevertheless, the Main bridge, now called the "Alte Brücke" (old bridge), turned out to be unsuitable to meet the rising demand caused by increasing amounts of street traffic. Since 1859, there had been plans to increase the width of the bridge. In 1865, first plans for a complete reconstruction with 8 instead of 13 arches, and a bridge width of 14 m, have been made. These plans even included a possible removal of the Main island.