The Friendship Bridge (, ) is a bridge which crosses the Saar river, south of Saarbrücken, and links the Saarland municipality of Kleinblittersdorf with the Lorraine commune of Grosbliederstroff. Although the idea of having a bridge between the two places, linked with each other for centuries, originated in the 1860s, the bridge was in fact first built in 1880. Having been destroyed at the beginning of the Second World War, it was newly built in 1964. The bridge's current form as a footbridge was constructed in 1993. While it impresses neither through architectural boldness nor through record breaking dimensions, the varied history of Franco-German relations, from "hereditary enmity" to a strong partnership within the European Union, can be interpreted through the bridge, especially since the 1963 Élysée Treaty came into force. While at times the bridge served as a border crossing between France and Germany, between these times it shifted between being seen as either an inner-German or an inner-French work of construction. First Bridge in 1880 In the Middle Ages and in the early Modern Era, Groß- and Kleinblittersdorf were two districts of the Lorraine village of Bliederstorff (first documented in the year 777) on opposite banks of the Saar river. The prefixes Groß- (meaning big in German) and Klein- (meaning small) for the respective districts first appeared at the end of the 16th Century, and were simply an indicator of their different population sizes. Separated by the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna, both districts belonged to the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, although to different states (Großblittersdorf to the Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine, Kleinblittersdorf to the Prussian Rhine Province). From 1919, Großblittersdorf was once again a municipality in France, while Kleinblittersdorf was located in the League of Nations controlled Saarland region as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, and from 1935 in the Third Reich. From 1940 until the end of the Second World War, they were both again under German rule. Whereas in 1956, like from 1919 until 1935, both places were again under French influence: Grosbliederstroff (as it is now known) as a municipality in the Moselle department and Kleinblittersdorf in the semi-autonomous Saarland, which was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany on 1 January 1957 due to the Saar Treaty. In the Middle Ages and the early Modern Era there were of course no structural river crossings. It is