City history: Construction of the Aa bridge on Bismarckstraße 1925

Between August 1925 and April 1926, the city of Bocholt had a new Aa bridge built on Bismarckstraße. At the time, it replaced a structure consisting of a main and flood bridge dating from 1885, which with its limited load-bearing capacity of a maximum of 2,500 kilograms no longer met the requirements of road traffic. The city archives commemorates this in its series of the historical photo of the month.

The new reinforced concrete structure also served to relieve downtown traffic. With this measure and the subsequent expansion of other traffic routes, the city administration implemented the plan to move traffic from the streets of the entire old city further towards the city limits.

In preparation for the construction work, Bismarckstrasse was closed to all vehicle traffic from Kreuzstrasse to Münsterstrasse from July 28, 1925 until further notice. First, an emergency bridge was built and then the previous river crossing was removed. At times, the water of the Aa had to be drained in order to install sheet pile walls on both banks. This work was completed by the end of September 1925. Then the excavation and shuttering of the foundations for the abutments began, which were concreted in the course of October. After All Saints' Day, the shuttering of the actual bridge deck could begin. N

ccording to the construction book, the first night frosts set in mid-November, and snow began to fall in the third decade. The photo was taken on November 28, 1925, and documents the progress of the work. The bridge is completely shuttered and laid in iron. Construction huts and board shacks for the pumps block the view of the factory owners' villas on Bismarck Street. At the beginning of December, the construction site was temporarily at a standstill because temperatures dropped well below freezing. Shortly before Christmas, a thaw set in with rain, and rising floodwaters gave the bridge builders a hard time until January 3, 1926. It was not until the end of January that the bridge beams and the roadway slab could be concreted. The construction of the actual roadway and the road stabilization continued until the finished bridge could finally be opened to traffic on the evening of April 7, 1926.

The bridge remained undamaged during the air raid on the city in 1945, but was blown up by order of the district leader before the Allied invasion. As a result, the left-side abutment and the outer frame beams suffered major damage, but this was soon repaired. In the course of the construction of the city ring and the regulation of the Aare, the reinforced concrete bridge on Bismarckstrasse was demolished in August 1969 and replaced by a new structure.