In 1900 the Prussian Minister of Public Works in the Prussian House of Representatives spoke in favour of the construction of a bridge over the Rhine at Bingen. Studies by the Prussian State Railways initially favoured a location at Bingerbrück because the current around the Binger Loch (“Bingen hole”, a narrow passage created through a reef in the Rhine in the 17th century and subsequently widened) made a bridge unfeasible in Bingen. Therefore, a site for the bridge was selected upstream of the Rhine island of Rüdesheim Aue at Rhine km mark 525.26, where the river is about 900 metres wide. Debates about whether to construct a railway bridge, a road bridge or a combined bridge continued for over a decade in the Reichstag until funds for the construction of a railway bridge were approved in March 1913. In this case, military concerns were decisive. The new Rhine bridge was a strategic railway connecting the Right Rhine Railway to the Nahe Valley Railway and the Glan Valley Railway, thus creating another German military railway to the French border. The German Empire provided over 75% of the cost of the bridge and access lines, the rest was funded by the participating states of Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The connecting curve was from the bridge towards Geisenheim and on to Wiesbaden was not eligible for imperial funding, because military transport would apparently follow the Rhine from Oberlahnstein, using the Lahn Valley Railway. Two similar railway bridges were also built across the Rhine mostly for military reasons: the Crown Prince William Bridge at Urmitz and the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen.