France half a year later, the Wehrmacht erected a wooden makeshift bridge in this position, which was again destroyed after the Battle of Normandy in the latter half of 1944. "Friendship Bridge" After the end of the war, only a small passenger ferry connected the two places for many years. This was the situation despite the France-Germany reconciliation, which has taken place particularly since Jean Monnet's Europe Declaration on 9 May 1950 as part of Western European integration through practical cooperation in the Council of Europe (which Germany joined in 1951), the European Coal and Steel Community (from 1952), and the European Economic Community (from 1958). This intensified the relations between the two countries, though at first only a little. During the reconstruction period, the construction of a new bridge and thus an additional permanent border crossing, especially one that was so close to Saarbrücken, was not on the political agenda for the Metz prefecture or for the Saarland governments under Minister-President Johannes Hoffmann and his successors. Bridge of 1964 This only changed after the German Chancellor Adenauer and French President de Gaulle signed the Élysée Treaty in 1963, which became known as the German-French Friendship Treaty. Apart from regulating foreign and domestic affairs as well as politics regarding the youth and culture, this agreement combined with the establishment of a Youth Office, facilitated a variety of transboundary initiatives on a regional and local level. Thus, Kleinblittersdorf and Grosbliederstroff did not only become sister cities very early on, but they also negotiated the construction of a new Saar bridge between the two municipalities in 1964, thus creating a new border crossing. However, it was not the first bridge to exist in this place. In fact, the main body of the bridge was built on top of the "Bridge of Sighs" (), a steel arch bridge of approximately 4 meters width, which had been located in the regional capital until the beginning of 1962 and was replaced by a new construction (Wilhelm-Heinrich-Brücke), and was brought to a new purpose. An approximately 2 meter wide part of wood and steel construction had to be added to the last section of the bridge over the river Saar, parallel to the Canal de la Sarre () on the French side, because the original bridge was too short. In 1981, there was one more modification in the same place. The increase of the bridge's height