7 de Março de 1945.

American troops seize the bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany and begin to cross. Remagen became famous for its Ludendorff Bridge which was captured by Allied forces on 7 March 1945 by the U.S. 9th Armored Division. Although the bridge collapsed into the Rhine just 10 days later, the Allies were able to build a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Rhine, which led to a faster defeat of Nazi Germany.

The bridge at Remagen was built during the First World War at the urging of the German generals, so that more troops and war materials could be brought to the Western Front. The bridge was designed by Karl Wiener, an architect from Mannheim. It was 325 meters long, had a clearance of 14.80 meters above the normal water level of the Rhine, and its highest point measured 29.25 meters. The bridge carried two rail lines and a pedestrian walkway. It was considered one of the finest steel bridges over the Rhine.

On 7 March 1945, an advance unit of the 9th U.S. Armored Division, led by LT Karl H. Timmermann, an American of German descent, reached the last intact bridge, just after the German defenders twice failed in their demolition attempts. The capture of the bridge is known in the annals of the war as the "Miracle of Remagen". General Eisenhower stated that "the bridge is worth its weight in gold". In the days immediately following, the German High Command made desperate attempts to destroy the bridge by bombing and even employing frogmen. Hitler irately convened a court-martial which condemned five officers to death, four of whom were actually executed in the Westerwald Forest. On 17 March 1945 the bridge collapsed. Twenty-eight American soldiers lost their lives.

In 1968 David L. Wolper produced an American motion picture, "The Bridge at Remagen". The film depicted actual historical background, but was fictional in all other aspects. The best-known work on the battle is 1957's The Bridge at Remagen by the American author Ken Hechler. In addition, a large number of books and articles in newspapers and magazines on the subject of the bridge have been published.

Wikipedia.