alignment and the broad concrete surface without a distinct median, it was also intended to function as an auxiliary airfield in World War II. After the war, annual races were resumed from 1949 to 1956. The East German driver Paul Greifzu was killed in a training accident on 10 May 1952. The four-way interchange at Schkeuditz was the first cloverleaf interchange in Germany, as well as the first autobahn interchange in Europe. It was opened in 1936, two years before construction was finished. On 30 June 2004 Germany's oldest autobahn inn, Rodaborn near Triptis, was closed due to the upgrading of the old two-lane to the modern three-lane profile. Located near the source of the Roda River, the restaurant was opened in 1928 as a country inn for the local population and turned into a rest area on 20 December 1936 when the Reichsautobahn was opened. During the days of the GDR, it was run by the state-owned Handelsorganisation (HO) company, later by Mitropa. The rest area was open only for transit travellers, not for East German citizens. In 2009, in a loop of history, it was rented by a local couple to re-open it as an inn for local daytrippers. Though the connection to the adjacent autobahn parking lot is cut off by a fence, Rodaborn still is a popular stop for motorway travellers. The Rudolphstein Saale Bridge south of Bad Lobenstein, an arch bridge designed by Paul Bonatz, was opened on 27 September 1936 and soon became an icon of the Reichsautobahn development program. Between 1945 and 1966 the A 9 was interrupted at the inner German border between Bavaria and Thuringia since an arch of the bridge had been blown up by retiring Wehrmacht forces near the end of the war. Traffic to and from West Berlin was diverted via A 72 until 1951 and from then until 1966 via B 2. Not until then the bridge could be rebuilt in a complicated joint venture of West and East German authorities. In the course of the autobahn extension, a second bridge was erected parallel to the original construction. The Frankenwald rest area near exit Rudolphstein is one of two rest areas in Germany with a restaurant bridging the road. In Lanzendorf near Bad Berneck, the autobahn passed right through the village on a bridge. The route was realigned during the construction after 1990. Right next to the