A 44 Motorway (Germany)

Bundesautobahn 44 (translates from German as Federal Motorway 44, short form Autobahn 44, abbreviated as BAB 44 or A 44) is a German Autobahn. It consists of three main parts and a few smaller parts. It begins in Aachen at the German–Belgian border and ends near Kassel. Before the German unification it was an unimportant provincial motorway but after this event it became an integral part of the German highway system. The A 44 is a highly frequented link between the Rhine-Ruhr-Area and the new German states, especially Thuringia, and by proxy, eastern European states like Poland and Ukraine.

History of construction

The first section of this motorway which was opened was the connection between Aachen and the interchange Aachen. This was in 1963.

Auxiliary runway for military aircraft

The section Geseke-Büren was constructed as an auxiliary runway. This section is even and straight, without any constructions like bridges and the crash-barriers can be taken out. It was constructed to be a runway for US-military aircraft in a war with NATO's opponent, the Warsaw Pact. At both ends of the section there are parking lots for parking and maintenance of the aircraft.

International E-road network

The Lichtenbusch-interchange Aachen section is part of the European route E 40. Between interchange Dortmund-Unna and interchange Kassel-Süd (Kassel south) the A 44 is part of the European route E 331.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Bundesautobahn 44" and modified on July 22, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.