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Description
‘Drachenlochbrücke’
Biography: Erich Mercker
‘Most Beautiful Highway of Germany’; construction of the Drachenloch Bridge, near Stuttgart. Nowadays a protected landmark.
Large format (120 x 100 cm), created in 1936/37.
Displayed at the exhibition ‘Nazi Design’, Design Museum Den Bosch, The Netherlands, 8 September 2019 – 1 March 2020. This world-wide highly publicized exhibition attracted over 130.000 visitors in six months. The exhibition was covered on the front page of the New York Times and Bild, and i.a. in the Guardian, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Paris Match, Spiegel, Welt, Tagesspiegel, El Pais and all Dutch newspapers. On television the exposition was covered i.a. by the ARD, ZDF, DW News, Aljazeera, AFP News Agency, SBS World News, and all mayor television chanels in The Netherlands. Because of the enormous popularity of the exhibition, the museum extended opening hours, opened its doors also on Mondays, and finally it extended the exhibition by 6 weeks.
This large painting depicts the construction of the ‘Drachenloch Brücke der Reichsautobahn’ in 1936/37 on the Bundesautobahn 8 from Stuttgart to Munich. The Drachenloch Bridge at the A8 is one of the five bridges at the Drackensteiner Hang in the Schwäbischen Alb, Baden-Württemberg. This traject is often referred to as ‘Most Beautiful Highway of Germany’ (‘Schönste Autobahnstrecke Deutschlands’).
The bridge, designed by Paul Bonatz (advisor of Fritz Todt), is 230 metres long, has 10 arches and is 47 meters high. Construction started in 1936 and it was finalized in 1937. The bridge was blown up by the Wehrmacht on 19 March 1945 (‘Sprengung auf Führerbefehl‘). Rebuilding of the bridge commenced in 1949 and was completed in 1950. The Drachenlochbrücke and the highway segment are -since 1994- a protected historic landmark.
‘Most of the finest and largest bridges were destroyed in the face of our advance….…There are some very impressive high bridge emplacements, with handsome masonry, the most striking perhaps coming from the offices of the two elder-generation industrial designers Wilhelm Tiedje and Paul Bonantz’ (Monuments Man Lincoln Kirstein, ‘Art in the Third Reich’, published in the ‘Magazine of Art’, New York, October 1945)
‘Drachenlochbrücke’ by Mercker, displayed at the exhibition ‘Nazi Design’, Design Museum Den Bosch, The Netherlands, 8 September 2019 – 1 March 2020.
‘Drachenlochbrücke’ by Mercker, shown by Deutsche Welle News on 13 September 2019.
‘Drachenlochbrücke’ by Mercker, shown by Arte TV on 20 September 2019.
Construction of the Drachenlochbrücke in 1936/37.
The Drachenlochbrücke completed in 1937/38.
Drachenlochbrücke/ Drackensteiner Hang
The Drackensteiner Hang is a mountainside in the Swabian Alps at Kirchheim unter Teck, near Stuttgart. Bundesautobahn 8 between Stuttgart and Ulm divides into separate northbound and southbound routes on either side of the peak. The two halves of the autobahn each traverse one tunnel and a series of viaducts; the bridges were all destroyed in World War II and had to be rebuilt, and the route in one direction was only completed in the 1950s. The entire segment is 16 kilometers long.
The northbound carriageway, 5.7 kilometers long, starts with the Impferlochbrücke, then passes through the 60 meters long Nasenfels Tunnel and skirts the Drackensteiner Hang proper on the Lehnbrücke, the 230 meters long Drachenloch Bridge, the 100 meters long Himmelsleiter Bridge and the 250 meters long Fischerhäusle Bridge before crossing the Fils west of Gosbach. This traject, often referred to as ‘Most Beautiful Highway of Germany’ (‘Schönste Autobahnstrecke Deutschlands’), was built during the Third Reich as part of Reichsautobahn 26 between Munich and Stuttgart. Work began in 1936 and continued on the southbound section of divided carriageway until 1942, when it stopped because of World War II.
On 20 April 1945, the retreating Wehrmacht blew up the Franzosenschlucht Viaduct and the Aichelberg Viaduct on the segment of motorway north of the division of routes. The Drachenloch Bridge had already been blown up on 19 March; the debris remains in the valley. This area and the land around the other two viaducts on the northbound section, as well as the Himmelsleiter Bridge and Fischerhäusle Bridge, are a protected historic landmark. The southbound carriageway was finally completed in 1955–57.
‘Unter Drackenstein mit Reichsautobahn’. From left to right: Lehnbrücke, Drachenlochbrücke, Himmelsleiterbrücke.
The bridge was blown up by the Wehrmacht on 19 March 1945 (‘Sprengung auf Führerbefehl‘).
Rebuilding of the Drachenbrücke in 1949.
The bridge in recent years.
Leaflet ‘Deutschlands schönste Autobahnstrecke’ from the Landes -Verkehrsverbands Württemberg, around 1960.
Revelation of two A8 Highway sign boards at 26 July 2018 by four German politicians (Regierungspräsident Wolfgang Reimer, Bundestagsabgeordneter Volker Münz, Landtagsabgeordneter Hermino Katzenstein, Minister Winfried Hermann und Landtagsabgeordnete Nicole Razavi). The boards with the text ‘Schönste Autobahnstrecke Deutschlands‘ were placed along the A8 near Mühlhausen and near Hohenstadt am Drackensteiner Hang.
| – condition | : II |
| – size | : 138 x 118 cm, unframed 120 x 100 cm |
| – signed | : created in 1937. Signed left under |
| – type | : oil on canvas |
| – misc. | : professional reframed; double canvas |
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