Elster Viaduct, Stone arch bridge in Weischlitz, Germany.
The Elster Viaduct is a stone arch bridge carrying the A72 motorway over the White Elster valley near Pirk. It has twelve arches, eleven piers founded on slate with diabase, and a total length of 623.7 m, rising up to 60 m above the valley. The piers and arches are clad in granite from Flossenbürg.
Construction began in 1937 but was halted during World War II, leaving the bridge incomplete while the area became a restricted zone. After German reunification, work resumed in 1990 and the viaduct was finally completed in 1993.
The granite facing came from a quarry at Flossenbürg in the Upper Palatinate, chosen for its resistance to frost and weather. Prisoners from the Flossenbürg camp, set up in 1938, cut the blocks for the Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke GmbH. The numbered stones lay sorted at the site through the decades of standstill.
The viaduct carries the A72 at kilometre 23.7 near Pirk, a district of Weischlitz in the Vogtland. Drivers cross it in seconds; there is no stopping lane, no footpath and no cycle path on the deck. To see the structure itself, leave the motorway and approach the valley from the village side.
The viaduct sat abandoned for decades, trapped in a restricted zone during the division of Germany. Resuming construction required extensive investigations to assess and restore the structure after such a long period of abandonment.
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