Last stretch of Hitler's motorway to disappear

Built by the Nazi regime as part of a programme to get Germans back to work, the 2.5-mile stretch of the A11 motorway lies to the north-east of Berlin, linking the German capital with the now-Polish city of Szczecin, which, before the war, lay in the Reich and was called Stettin.

The original 82-foot-long slabs of concrete survived the war and the following decades but are now succumbing to the effects of time, the weather and increased traffic between Poland and Germany. Running repairs have kept the road operating for a number of years but now it requires resurfacing.

"The condition of the roadway is unbearable," Frank Gotzmann, director of the nearby town of Gartz, told the newspaper Welt. "Everyone drives very carefully on it. They even drive in the left lane because the right-hand one is very bad....