Today in Rhein-Main: Good news for the Rheingau

Good evening,

Carsten Knop

Editor.

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Today I would like to start with two pieces of good news, especially for the Rheingau: The construction of the bridge over the Salzbach valley is making great progress.

And without "Plan B", the Rheingau Music Festival is relying on a number of visitors in the summer that is almost the same as before the pandemic.

The fact that the alleged “NSU 2.0” threatening letter writer now has to answer in court in Frankfurt is actually good news, but the start of the process was rather unpleasant.

New construction: The work on the replacement of the Salzbach viaduct on the Autobahn 66 near Wiesbaden is progressing much faster than expected.

The southern bridge is expected to be opened to traffic as early as autumn next year, while the northern bridge will be available for traffic in mid-2025 according to the current plans of the federal Autobahn GmbH.

So far, the completion of the entire bridge was only scheduled for the end of 2026.

The fact that it could be one and a half years earlier is thanks to the blasting of the bridge last November due to the acute danger of it collapsing.

Continuation: Under the direction of the new chief conductor Alain Altinoglu, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra will open the Rheingau Music Festival on June 25th in the basilica of Kloster Eberbach.

Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2 in B flat major ("Lobgesang") can also be heard there on the following evening.

130 more concerts at 25 venues in the Rheingau and neighboring regions will follow before the end of the festival on September 3rd at the same venue with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.

A total of 131,000 tickets are available.

With these figures and the total budget of eight million euros, which has been constant for a long time, of which about half each comes from sponsorship and ticket sales, the festival in its 35th edition is almost back to the level it was before the pandemic.

Process: Since Wednesday, Alexander M. has had to answer to the Frankfurt district court.

He is said to have sent 116 threatening letters as "NSU 2.0".

But the first day of the trial began with two middle fingers in the direction of the press: M., 54 years old, had barely taken his seat in the dock of the Frankfurt district court on Wednesday morning when he already showed what he thought of the journalists in the press gallery.

When the presiding judge of the 17th major criminal chamber asked him for his last address, as is usual at the beginning of a trial, he called into the microphone that he would not give it.

"Because it's none of the press's business.

The public prosecutor's office has already published the indictment." Three hours later, after the indictment had been read out, M. showed with an unmistakable gesture,

what he thinks of the Frankfurt prosecutors.

He wanted to start reading out his statement immediately, his voice echoed through the hall.

But it did not get to that.

The chairperson made it clear to M. who was in charge in the hall.

It will be interesting to see how things will continue.

And

the Bishop of Mainz, Peter Kohlgraf, has also opposed two statements by reform-oriented Catholics.

He will not sign the "Frankfurt Declaration" because it would anticipate the result of the synodal path

the explosive ordnance clearance service only needed half an hour to render the World War II bomb on Rebstockpark harmless

Rosemarie Heilig is now also the climate officer in Frankfurt and responsible for ensuring that the city is CO2-neutral by 2035.

In an interview, the Green politician says how realistic it is to achieve the goal.

Greetings from the editorial team,

Yours, Carsten Knop

The weather for Thursday:

At first there was still some rain, the wind was partly stormy in the morning and then eased off a bit in the afternoon.

Up to 13 degrees.

birthday

on

Enis Ersü

, founder and until June 2021 CEO of Isra Vision AG, Darmstadt (69);

, President of the Hessen Chamber of Pharmacists, Frankfurt (60);

, Head of the Children and Youth Theater Center in the Federal Republic of Germany, Frankfurt (60);

, lawyer, First Administrator of the Frankfurt Civic Foundation (55);

, President of Offenbacher Kickers (55);

, Chairwoman of the Board of Alliance Healthcare Deutschland GmbH, Frankfurt (48);

, Rector of the EBS University for Economics and Law, Wiesbaden (44).