HaFraBa


The Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte–Frankfurt–Basel, commonly referred to as HaFraBa, was an organization dedicated to developing one of the first large Autobahn projects in Germany.

Foundation and name

The association was founded on November 6, 1926 as "Verein zum Bau einer Straße für den Kraftwagen-Schnellverkehr von Hamburg über Frankfurt a.M. nach Basel" by Robert Otzen. On May 31, 1928 the association was renamed as the Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte–Frankfurt–Basel to include the Hanseatic cities of Bremen and Lübeck into the planning. As the terms Hamburg and Hansestädte begin with the same letters the abbreviation HaFraBa could be maintained.

Planned motorways and toll

Initial planning saw a motorway link from Hamburg to Hanover and from Frankfurt to Basel with later planning including Bremen and Lübeck. The plans almost matched the current Autobahn 5 and the Northern part of the Autobahn 7. In 1930, for each city, detailed plannings of the linkage to the Hafraba was presented in summaries subtitled "Städte an den Hafrabastraßen" by J. F. Amberger, Adolf Elsaesser, Theodor Krebs, Maurer, Rehorn and Carl Thalenhorst in the newspaper Hafraba-Mitteilungsblatt.
As the government saw no need to this project, the HaFraBa planned to implement a toll system to provide financing. The calculations resulted in the following prices:
At first, the project was rejected by the Nazis but after the takeover by Adolf Hitler, the plans where partially adopted when building Autobahn 5 and Autobahn 7. The name of the association was later changed to Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung der Reichsautobahnen.

Literature

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