After the Soviet Red Army took Budapest in early 1945, they found all the city's five bridges had been blown up by retreating German troops.

Some steel from gunbarrels from abandoned and destroyed World War II battle tanks were apparently incorporated in the structure.

Because of the tight schedule and design restrictions dictated by available substandard materials, the bridge was built with numerous concrete pylons, with smallish, 30 and 40-metre-wide openings between them.

Officially inaugurated as the "Lajos Kossuth Bridge", it was named after the patriot leader of Hungary's 1848–49 revolution.

The Kossuth Bridge gradually became a maintenance problem and its low span more of an obstacle to shipping on the River Danube.