The story of this place
By March 1945 the retreating Germans had blown every bridge across the Rhine to stop the Allied advance — except one. On 7 March, American troops of the 9th Armored Division reached the Ludendorff railway bridge at Remagen to find German demolition charges had only partly detonated. Under fire, engineers cut the remaining wires and infantry sprinted across, seizing the first Allied bridgehead on the Rhine's east bank. Eisenhower said the crossing was 'worth its weight in gold', letting tens of thousands of troops pour over before the weakened bridge finally collapsed on 17 March, killing 28 engineers. Hitler had four officers executed for failing to destroy it. The surviving stone towers now house a peace museum.