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Berlinka ((ロシア語:''Берлинка'')) is the informal Polish and Russian name given to sections of the unfinished Reichsautobahn Berlin-Königsberg, which was a pre-World War II German Reichsautobahn project to connect Berlin with Königsberg in East Prussia. In the late 1930s, the sections near these two cities were finished, but not the larger section in between. The German demand in 1939 to run this road across the Polish Corridor with extraterritorial status and Poland's refusal to allow this was an important element in the tensions that led to the start of World War II. After the war, the German Democratic Republic, the People's Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union's Kaliningrad Oblast inherited the remnants. ==Background== Eastern Prussia had been separated from Germany following the Treaty of Versailles by the Polish Corridor of the Second Polish Republic. By 1939 Poland had already refused demands made by Nazi Germany, including one for an extraterritorial corridor within the Corridor. This fact was eventually used by Adolf Hitler as one of the pretexts for the German invasion of Poland in 1939. The road was planned under the Weimar Republic, but was partially constructed during the 1930s and early 1940s by the Third Reich. Following territorial changes made after World War II it ran through three countries: the USSR (Kaliningrad Oblast, modern Russia), Poland and East Germany. Its original purpose gone, some segments of the road were incorporated into local road networks while most of it fell into disrepair. The border between the Kaliningrad Oblast and Poland was completely sealed to civilian traffic during the Cold War, given the high density of Soviet military installations in that area, which ensured the Berlinka section in that area saw almost no use. The border between Poland and East Germany was open to civilian traffic but the economies of the two countries were not well connected and auto traffic between them was not significant for many decades. Given these conditions, some segments of Berlinka became a minor tourist attraction in the years after the war, as an example of a Nazi-built autobahn preserved in an almost pristine state, carrying very little or no traffic. A number of movies made in Poland and the USSR that were set in Germany had their ''autobahn'' scenes shot on Berlinka sections. A popular Polish book and television series about Pan Samochodzik had a high speed car chase that was set on Berlinka (as at the time one of the few places in Poland where a high speed car chase was even plausible, given the execrable condition of other roads). In recent years that attraction has diminished as most of the stretches completed in the 1930s have been reconstructed to modern standards and largely lost their original appearance. Today the last remaining stretch that still has Nazi era construction features is signed as voivodeship road 142, north-east of Szczecin. As that stretch is only a local road, it is unlikely to be rebuilt in the foreseeable future. Along with constructing the motorway, after invading Poland the Germans also quickly upgraded the main road going to East Prussia, in places paving it with concrete. Even though it is only a single carriageway road and not a motorway, it is also considered to be a part of Berlinka. This section includes one interesting cloverleaf interchange () and a large bridge over the Vistula south of Tczew (). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Berlinka」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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