Kossuth Bridge

About

The Kossuth Bridge or Kossuth híd was a bridge that stood over the river Danube in Budapest from 15 January 1946 to 1960. After the Soviet Red Army took Budapest in early 1945, they found all the city's five bridges had been blown up by retreating German troops. (Árpád hid was not blown-up, it was just incomplete, under construction).

Soon, a pontoon bridge was created for military logistical purposes but its capacity proved insufficient and presence of winter icepacks on the Danube made it impossible to maintain a permanent link across the 290-metre-wide river with a floating bridge. A decision was made to build a spar-type bridge in record time. The total destruction of industry and lack of raw materials in Hungary required cannibalizing several dozen oil wells in the oil fields of Zala county for the construction project.

Steel piping was pulled from the depths and used as the main spars for the bridge. Some steel from gunbarrels from abandoned and destroyed World War II battle tanks were apparently incorporated in the structure. Because of the tight schedule and design restrictions dictated by available substandard materials, the bridge was built with numerous concrete pylons, with...