The Elbe... my own River Kwai

Photo by David Becker on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

It was shortly after 9pm on Monday evening. With my partner and children, I was on the home stretch of a slog of a drive from Wiesbaden to Berlin.

A sign at the side of the Autobahn 9 signalled that the next exit was for Dessau Ost. Seeing the Dessau exit always gives me a psychological boost: a little over an hour of straight, empty road and we're home.

Then came a sign for road works ahead. Nothing unusual about that. Squeezing onto two lanes on Germany’s rundown motorways has become the norm in recent years.

But, after being directed onto two lanes and then one, this time the traffic was led off the motorway altogether. Ahead of us the entire autobahn had been shut down. A flashing yellow arrow told us to exit for Dessau.

I followed the long line of traffic in front of me, half on autopilot. The car in front had a Berlin licence plate: another person heading along the diversion.

What I didn’t realise was that I’d joined a motorised conga - an…