On Tuesday, April 17, 1945, so to speak, at the end of World War II. World War II, the German army (according to available sources) sacrificed and mined the railway bridge at Mitterling near Radgonske Toplice, German Bad Radkersburg, or Gornja Radgona. …
The Second World War was almost over. The Red Army was getting closer and closer to Bad Radkersburg and reached the town, forcing the German Wehrmacht to retreat to Gornja Radgona. It was only on May 8, 1945, that the German soldiers left Gornja Radgona, and on that day the bridge was passable on both sides of the Mura River.
The German army intended to stop the Red Army in Radkersburg by blowing up the railway bridge. On April 17, 1945, the war was already lost, but at the same time, one of the most important links of the railway infrastructure between the Austrian Styria and the MurA region was destroyed.
Half of this bridge, on the Bad Radkersburg side, was dismantled in 1947. At that time, the Yugoslav part of the bridge was temporarily disabled and then dismantled in the mid-1950s. Since the railway bridge over the Mura River was no longer established, we still do not have a railway connection between two cities, two friendly neighboring EU countries, and the wider Central European area.
As Günter Auferbauer said at a discussion on the future of the Radgon line, the German Radkersburger Bahn, in May 2013 in Bad Radkesburg:
Imagine that on April 17, 1945, the German army had failed to mine a bridge that would have survived the war. Today, traveling by train to Slovenia would be self-evident to us, without any thought, as the most common thing in the world!
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