About this place
Kaiser Wilhelm II rides in bronze at the western end of the Hohenzollernbrücke, Germany's busiest railway bridge, where more than 1,200 trains a day thunder past a fence heavy with love locks. On 31 July 2006, two of those trains carried suitcase bombs. Two young Lebanese students had wheeled them onto regional trains at the main station next door, one bound for Hamm via Dortmund, the other for Koblenz, then stepped off on the far side of the Rhine, one at Deutz and one at Troisdorf. Each case held a gas cylinder, petrol and an alarm clock set for 14:30. The timers ran down and the detonators fired, but a construction error kept the gas and petrol from igniting, and a conductor who found one suitcase about ten minutes later handed it in as lost luggage. Experts said each bomb could have produced a fireball 15 metres wide. Grainy station CCTV cracked the case: the first suspect was arrested in Kiel the morning after the images went public and was sentenced to life in Düsseldorf in 2008, while his accomplice got twelve years in Lebanon. A witness at the trial later claimed that this very bridge had been on their list of targets.
Key facts
- 15 metres — The diameter of the fireball each suitcase bomb could have produced, with metal fragments flying up to 100 metres, according to federal testing experts.
- 10 minutes — About ten minutes after the timers fired at 14:30, a conductor found one of the suitcases and handed it in as ordinary lost luggage.
- 1200 trains a day — More than 1,200 trains cross the Hohenzollernbrücke daily, making it Germany's busiest railway bridge; both bomb trains rolled over it.