Friendship Bridge at Kleinblittersdorf

In the Middle Ages and the early Modern Era there were of course no structural river crossings. It is assumed that crossing the Saar, which had not yet been canalised, was initially made possible with the help of a ford and later a ferryman with a dugout canoe. It was not until 1868 that the idea of the bridge was embraced. The initial idea sought to construct a pier between a small river island in the Saar and the parallel lock canal (part of the Saar Canal), which was built in the years 1862–1879. Initiatives by the Mayor of Grosbliederstroff were repeatedly rejected by the Metz prefecture. It is not known whether there were attempts to also contact the responsible Prussian authorities on the Saar's eastern bank. However, it was not until soon after the war of 1870/71 that the planning of the project properly began. At this time there was clearly a large need for a further river crossing between Saarbrücken and Saareguemines, as many workers from the towns to the left of the Saar found employment in the factories in the district of Brebach, which today is in the south-east of Saarbrücken. In addition, the Saar was no longer a border river, rather it was located on German territory. Therefore, any of the German military personnel's fears that such a structure would make it easier for troops of the "hereditary enemy" France to cross the border into German territory became irrelevant.

In August 1968, the company Richard Schmidt in Luisenthal was commissioned to build a stone arch bridge with six pillars. On 1 October 1880, the bridge, despite having had no railing installed before the official opening, was initially approved for pedestrians and from January 1881 also approved for vehicles. Part of the construction costs were covered through the paying of a toll, and toll booths were built on both bridgeheads for this purpose. Commuters on the western bank of the Saar now had greater access to the Kleinblittersdorf train station on the important Saarbrücken-Saareguemines railway line, which was much easier and faster to reach than the previous ferry service. The new crossing additionally offered residents the welcomed opportunity to visit and to run errands in the other district.

On 9 September 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, the French Military demolished the bridge, so that in the event of a German attack between the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line, it would be harder to cross the Saar. When Germany actually attacked France half a year later, the Wehrmacht erected a wooden makeshift bridge in this position, which was again destroyed after the Battle of Normandy in the latter half of 1944.

"Friendship Bridge"

After the end of the war, only a small passenger ferry connected the two places for many years. This was the situation despite the France-Germany reconciliation, which has taken place particularly since Jean Monnet's Europe Declaration on 9 May 1950 as part of Western European integration through practical cooperation in the Council of Europe (which Germany joined in 1951), the European Coal and Steel Community (from 1952), and the European Economic Community (from 1958). This intensified the relations between the two countries, though at first only a little. During the reconstruction period, the construction of a new bridge and thus an additional permanent border crossing, especially one that was so close to Saarbrücken, was not on the political agenda for the Metz prefecture or for the Saarland governments under Minister-President Johannes Hoffmann and his successors.

Bridge of 1964

This only changed after the German Chancellor Adenauer and French President de Gaulle signed the Élysée Treaty in 1963, which became known as the German-French Friendship Treaty. Apart from regulating foreign and domestic affairs as well as politics regarding the youth and culture, this agreement combined with the establishment of a Youth Office, facilitated a variety of transboundary initiatives on a regional and local level. Thus, Kleinblittersdorf and Grosbliederstroff did not only become sister cities very early on, but they also negotiated the construction of a new Saar bridge between the two municipalities in 1964, thus creating a new border crossing. However, it was not the first bridge to exist in this place. In fact, the main body of the bridge was built on top of the "Bridge of Sighs" (German: Kummersteg), a steel arch bridge of approximately 4 meters width, which had been located in the regional capital until the beginning of 1962 and was replaced by a new construction (Wilhelm-Heinrich-Brücke), and was brought to a new purpose. An approximately 2 meter wide part of wood and steel construction had to be added to the last section of the bridge over the river Saar, parallel to the Canal de la Sarre (German: Saarkanal) on the French side, because the original bridge was too short. In 1981, there was one more modification in the same place. The increase of the bridge's height enabled the passage of larger riverboats up to Sarreguemines past the otherwise non-navigable canal of the river Saar in this area.