Hansabrücke, Road bridge in Moabit, Germany

The Hansabrücke is a road bridge over the Spree in Berlin, linking the Hansaviertel and Moabit districts. The current structure, built in 1952/53, has a concrete deck resting on eight parallel arched girders. It reuses the abutments and foundations of the 1910 stone bridge by Bruno Möhring, Friedrich Krause and Walter Schmarje, which had a single 50-metre arch and a half-timbered bridge house.

A private builder erected an eleven-span wooden bridge here between 1892 and 1894, first called Altonaer Brücke and renamed Hansabrücke in 1895. Replaced by a stone bridge designed by Bruno Möhring, Friedrich Krause and Walter Schmarje with a 50-metre arch, it opened in 1910. Destroyed in the Second World War and damaged further by blasting, its remains were removed in 1950; the bridge was rebuilt in simplified form in 1952/1953 on the old abutments.

The bridge takes its name from the Neues Hansaviertel housing estate rising in neighbouring Moabit, which in turn recalled the Hanseatic League; it was called Altonaer Brücke until 1895. On the north-western pier a flat relief of a Hanseatic cog is set, moved there from the entrance of the former bridge house. Since 1914 the Schifferbrunnen by Hermann Hosaeus stands at the south-eastern bank: a sandstone column with a barefoot accordion-playing boatman in a twelve-sided basin 2.80 metres across, its four frogs once acting as water spouts.

The bridge is open daily to vehicles and pedestrians as a main traffic route in the area. Visitors should know the crossing sees heavy use during peak hours, so quieter times are better for lingering or taking photographs.

In the pier at the northwestern end sits a flat relief of a Hanseatic cog, once mounted above the entrance of the bridge house. On the southeastern bank stands the Schifferbrunnen, a fountain by Hermann Hosaeus added in 1914: a sandstone column with a barefoot accordion-playing boatman in a twelve-sided basin 2.80 metres across, its four frogs once acting as water spouts. The basin is planted today.