A bridge crosses the Danube from the Petrovaradin bank toward Novi Sad's skyline, its ironwork fully intact, a large white building standing near the far end. The card is dated May 1941, after Yugoslav forces destroyed the Danube bridges at Novi Sad during the invasion the previous month; this photograph appears to predate that demolition despite the date written on the card.
About this place
The Emperor Franz Joseph bridge was the first permanent crossing of the Danube at Novi Sad and it carried the railway, not the road. It went up in 1883, the year the line from Subotica reached the town in March and the stretch onward to Zemun opened in December, and it stood for fifty-eight years. After 1918 it was renamed for Prince Andrej of the Yugoslav royal house. The Yugoslav army blew it up in April 1941 to slow the German advance southward, and the occupiers put up a replacement railway bridge that they in turn destroyed as they withdrew in 1944. This archive's catalogue gives the length as 432 metres and credits the design to Karl Baumann, who is said also to have driven the tunnel under the Petrovaradin fortress.
On the card
ÚJVIDÉK.
Novi Sad.
- Date
- by May 1941
- Coordinates
- 45.25017, 19.85890
- Source
- Zempléni Múzeum, Szerencs - képeslapok
- Credit
- Zempléni Múzeum, Szerencs
- Licence
- Public domain
- Size
- 2304 × 1470 px
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