Midway through Operation Lumberjack, on 7 March 1945, the troops of the 1st U.S. Army approached Remagen and were surprised to find that the bridge was still standing.

[1] Its capture, two weeks before Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's planned Operation Plunder, enabled the U.S. Army to establish a bridgehead on the eastern side of the Rhine.

A 2020 poll of local people found that 91% favoured rebuilding the bridge; without it there is no river crossing for 44 km (27 mi), and few ferries.

Local communities indicated an interest to help fund the project and an engineer was commissioned to draw up plans.

German General Erich Ludendorff was a key advocate for building this bridge during World War I, and it was named after him.

Constructed between 1916 and 1919, using Russian prisoners of war as labour, it carried two railway lines and a pedestrian catwalk on either side.

On the eastern bank the railway passed through Erpeler Ley, a steeply rising hill over 150 metres (490 ft) high.

The engineers connected the charges in the piers and the zinc boxes by electrical cable protected by steel pipe to a control panel inside the rail tunnel under Erpeler Ley, where engineers could safely detonate the charges.

German leader Adolf Hitler reacted by demanding that demolition charges on bridges could only be set when the enemy was within a specific distance, and only exploded by written order.

This left officers responsible for destroying bridges, in the event that the enemy approached, nervous about both blowing it too soon and the consequences if they failed.

[6] In keeping with Hitler's orders, by 7 March 1945, the charges on the Ludendorff Bridge had been removed and were stored nearby.

[1]: 1432–4  Instead, U.S. forces advanced rapidly through Germany, and by 12 April the Ninth United States Army had crossed the Elbe.

The final mission in the 2017 video game Call of Duty: WWII involves the player in helping take the bridge.

The Bridge at Remagen is a 1969 DeLuxe Color war film in Panavision starring George Segal, Ben Gazzara and Robert Vaughn.

The film is a highly fictionalized version of actual events during the last months of World War II when the 9th Armored Division approached Remagen and captured the intact Ludendorff Bridge.