European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 11, 1947, Darmstadt, Hesse Germany transportation arteries Are 2000 Miles of autobahn Start chm from Denmark to v War scarred Auto banns Beckon motorists under my supervision germans Are repairing the highways american engineers now Call uneconomical and inefficient by Michael Valenti weekend photographs his vehicle rolling along a smooth stretch of Lovely Rural vistas on either the occupation yank Driver is enjoying one of the few benefits the nazis conferred on the autobahn sys huge Highway system not yet showed Down when the War in Europe construction on the autobahn ground to a virtual halt during the closing years of the fight today Germany great arteries of transportation have been set Back for the most part by neglect of maintenance and in some places by the destruction of Only the work of reconstruction is being done on them extending of the vast network As it was originally planned cannot occur in the foreseeable under the supervision of the transportation division of the individual German states have undertaken to re pair the farming the work out to private american occupational forces have had Little to do with the actual reconstruction except in advisory but for the purposes of making More secure the military patrol army engineers come to the Aid of the germans in Bridge repair five spans on the Karlsruhe Stuttgart autobahn were rebuilt with the help of the second battalion of the 333rd Engineer special service regi which furnished plans and German labourers performed the actual and the materials came from confiscated War Bridge the Only steel Omegus will permit for use in Bridge recon under direct control of the 333rd engineers was construction of the 1135foot Pforzheim largest of the five feature of this Job which both civil and military engineers watched with interest was the rearing of a pendulum an exceptional height for these q speculation As to How Long it o win tak6 to restore the which experts declare rein relatively Good to their former hinges on the question of labor and with an adequate flow of some experts say five it May take a decade or brigadier general Donald Neucom chief reconstruction of the autobahn to their prewar condition is involved with so Many intangibles such As the labor especially steel for Bridge that it is difficult to make any some Bridges will never be some shoe Fly Crossings will military government and the German authorities Are unanimous in voicing their opinion that it would be to the Best interests of Germany and occupation forces to focus at on the reconstruction of the a the germans have asked military government for the policy of my will continued on next Page the Page for pictures of the autobahn
