Anyone traveling in the area around Dömitz should not miss the sight of the former 986-meter-long railroad bridge on the Wittenberge-Lüneburg rail line. It can be wonderfully viewed both up close and from more distant vantage points.
The railroad bridge was built from 1870 to 1873 by the Berlin-Hamburg Railway Company and was the second longest railroad bridge in Germany at that time. At the end of the 2nd World War it was bombed. Since the bridge had already been prepared for demolition by the Germans in advance, the destruction was immense. Debris that had fallen into the water blocked the Elbe's navigation channel. The GDR later had parts of the bridge dismantled, so that today only a bastion on the left bank of the Elbe near Kaltenhof on Lower Saxony territory and 16 arches remain. In the museum of the town of Dömitz there is an exhibition on the bridge in the Elbe navigation section. From the Dömitz Elbe embankment and especially from the Panorama Café at a height of 40 meters, the railroad bridge can be viewed particularly well in the undeveloped Elbe landscape and represents an interesting photo motif. On a nice summer day, you can have a very nice picnic on the meadows of the wide bank of the Elbe and watch the sun sink behind the memorial from the foot of the monument. In 2010, the bridge was auctioned off and is now privately owned.
