Hohenzollern Bridge

The Hohenzollern Bridge carries six railway tracks and a pedestrian walkway across the Rhine on three massive steel arch spans. It serves as the primary gateway for trains entering Cologne from the east. In the final weeks of the Second World War, German military engineers blew up the structure to block the Allied advance. They achieved this even though their own troops were still retreating across the span. Soldiers scrambled over the rubble to reach the western bank before the demolition concluded.