page_title: Bundesautobahn 7
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bundesautobahn 7 / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Bundesautobahn 7 bei Hopferau, kurz vor ihrem Ende bei Füssen
context_page_description: Bundesautobahn 7 is the longest German Autobahn and the longest national motorway in Europe at 963 km. It bisects the country almost evenly between east and west. In the north, it starts at the border with Denmark as an extension of the Danish part of E45. In the south, the autobahn ends at the Austrian border. This final gap was closed in September 2009.
context_section_description: The highway replaced as a trunk connection the imperial or federal roads 76, 77, 205 and 4 (Flensburg-Hamburg), 3 (Hamburg-Kassel) and 27 (Göttingen-Würzburg), which in turn went back to medieval precursors. On the route between Flensburg and Hamburg, for example, it follows the historic Ochsenweg and can be described as its successor in terms of its importance as a trade route from Scandinavia to the south. Plans for a highway from Hamburg to the south were made in the framework of the HaFraBa from 1926. This project is considered to be the predecessor of the A7 between Hamburg and the Hattenbacher Dreieck.
  The first section opened from Göttingen to Bad Hersfeld in 1937. Construction of the section between Bad Hersfeld and Würzburg (Strecke 46) began in 1937 with various bridge structures built however the road wasn't completed before war broke out in 1939 and construction was stopped before being fully abandon in 1940. After World War 2 the route of A7 was altered leaving some of the abandoned bridge structures of Strecke 46 to be preserved as historic monuments. 
  From the 1950s, the highway was built between the A 1 south of Hamburg and the existing part of the A7 near Göttingen and opened in sections. At the A1 the "Horster triangle" was created as the new beginning of the A7. From the south (Hanover) coming vehicles had there at the threading to the A1 in the direction of west (Bremen) drive through a steep curve for many years.
  The section Echte-Seesen was opened on 14 November 1959. The section Seesen Hildesheim was opened on 15 December 1960 by Secretary of Transportation Seebohm.
  From 1956, the seven sections between Hamburg and Hanover were handed over to traffic. In 1960, the 21km section between junction Berkhof and the cross Hannover / Kirchhorst was opened last.
  The four remaining sections in between were opened in 1958. The gap closure was achieved with the 35 km section between motorway junction Hannover / Kirchhorst and junction Hildesheim in 1962.
  In the 1960s, the A7 was then built on a slightly different route. The first to be opened in 1965 was the 10.9 km section north of the Biebelried interchange to the junction Würzburg / Estenfeld. 1966 followed the adjacent section to the present cross Schweinfurt / Werneck and the 14.8 km long section between Fulda North and Fulda South. The northernmost section from the Hattenbacher Triangle to Fulda (32 km) and the middle section between Fulda and Schweinfurt (68 km) were finally handed over to traffic in 1968.
  In the 1960s and 1970s, the highway was built in the Hamburg area and the so-called north axis to Denmark and handed over to traffic. The construction took place in nine sections. An important milestone was the opening of the New Elbe Tunnel in 1975. On 13 July 1976, Ernst Haar, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transport, and Schleswig-Holstein's Minister of the Interior Rudolf Titzck solemnly opened the motorway section from Tarp to Handewitt. Only in 1978, the last vacant space between Tarp and Schuby was closed, so that the highway could be driven from Hamburg to the federal border.
  On 13 June 1978, Queen Margrethe II and President Walter Scheel opened the border crossing Ellund, accompanied by Prime Minister Gerhard Stoltenberg and the Flensburg Mayor Ingrid Gross. At 10.55 clock they officially released the freeway and passport control, at 12.32 clock rolled the first car through the new border crossing. Ellund developed into the most important transit point of German-Danish border traffic. In 1979, 3.2 million travelers passed the counters; until 1997, the number had more than quintupled at 16.7 million.
  In the preliminary draft for a motor vehicle road network of Germany of the study company for automotive road construction (STUFA) of 1926 a highway Würzburg-Ulm-Lindau was provided, detail planning took place from 1935 to 1941. In 1969, the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg were able to agree on a line parallel to the federal highway 19.
  From 1972 first sections could be released. It started with the Berkheim secti
caption: The expressway near Füssen
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