A Link Between
Hanover and Berlin
In September, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl
inaugurated a new $3 billion (DM 5 billion) high speed rail link between Hanover and
Berlin, six years under construction.
One of 17 "German Unity" projects designed to
improve the neglected infrastructure in the eastern part of the country, the new line
forms part of a high speed international east-west rail link that reduces travel time on
the 263-kilometer (164-mile) trip by just under one hour. Trains will travel along some
segments of the line, part of the new European high speed rail link from Paris to Berlin
via Brussels, Aachen, and Cologne, at speeds ranging up to 250 kilometers per hour (156
miles per hour).
The massive transportation infrastructure program
benefiting the eastern part of the country following reunification, nine years ago, has
involved capital investments totaling DM 87 billion ($53 billion) which is nearly half of
the nation's total transport infrastructure and, in Kohl's words, "a
disproportionately large amount" when viewed in terms of the population density and
surface area of eastern Germany.
The commitment to infrastructure improvement in eastern
Germany under the federal government's investment program is likely to continue under the
new Social Democratic/ Green coalition government headed by Gerhard Schroeder, which was
recently voted into office.
Under the "German Unity" infrastructure
improvement program, some 5,300 kilometers (3,312 miles) of track and some 11,500 km
(7,187 miles) of roads have been built or improved to date. In a related move, the
state-owned national rail carrier Deutsche Bundesbahn, now known as Deutsche Bahn, was
turned into a private company after its post-reunification merger with the East German
Railway (Reichsbahn).
Environmental and archeological concerns ranked high in
the construction of the new rail line. Four miles of earth mounds were built and
catenaries lowered near Rathenow to protect Germany's last colony of bustards, a rare
breed of large bird, and archeological digs along a Brandenburg segment unearthed a
third-century fountain and various funerary objects.
The first of the new high speed train sets was christened
"Claus, Graf von Stauffenberg," in memory of the Prussian nobleman who led the
ill-fated attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944.
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