The air raids in February and March 1945 had caused only minor damage to the Carola Bridge. Like all of Dresden’s bridges and the important arterial roads, in March 1945 the approaches to Carola Bridge were equipped with anti-tank obstacles that could quickly be shut. Artillery positions were set up on the opposite bank of the river, and sections of the Elbe riverbank in Dresden-Neustadt were mined.
At the end of April 1945, enemy troops were expected to reach Dresden any day. The city had been declared a fortress. Dresden’s municipal authorities attempted to delay the bridges being blown up, which had already been prepared. They feared that securing food supplies in particular would become dramatically more difficult if the transport routes across the Elbe were destroyed. In addition, the disruption of the gas and water mains that lay in the bridges would cause the supply of the city to collapse completely.
On 7 May 1945, the troops were commanded to withdraw from the fortress area. Carola Bridge was blown up that same day.

Marked in 2001