Volunteer curator Fred Caesar, right, shows off a scaled version of what the wire rope on the Brooklyn Bridge is made of to German Consul General David Gill at Saxonburg Museum at Roebling Park last September. SHANE POTTER/BUTLER EAGLE

Shane W Potter

The Saxonburg Museum will feature in a German documentary that may be released later this year in the United States.

The museum’s volunteer curator, Fred Caesar, said he has learned that the documentary, “The Brooklyn Bridge: An Engineering Masterpiece,” will be shown in Europe in 2023 and then made available worldwide.

“We do not know the day that it is going to be released,” said Caesar, who has stayed in touch with the production company over the past year.

Caesar said that once the program appears in Europe, the English version of the documentary will be made available for viewing to a Saxonburg audience.

“They said they would send me a copy in English,” Caesar said, but no decision has been made as to how or where a viewing of the documentary would take place in Saxonburg.

A replica of the wire rope invented by Saxonburg founder John Roebling is on display at the Saxonburg Museum, along with many other items commemorating Roebling’s invention of the wire rope that allowed him to build the Brooklyn Bridge. SAXONBURG MUSEUM ARCHIVE

Caesar said a German production company, Florianfilm, videotaped portions of the documentary at the museum and other historical Saxonburg locations in October 2021. John Roebling, the inventor of the wire rope used in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, immigrated from Prussia, and with his brother, Carl, bought 1,582 acres of land on Oct. 28, 1831, in Butler County to establish a German settlement, to be called Saxonburg.

“The tourism people in Muelhausen (Germany) they come to me and come to the museum,” Caesar said. “They came to the museum and interviewed me for several hours. They also interviewed the mayor (William Gillespie Jr.).

“They were here for two days. They also filmed at the old, white church, Roebling’s house and Carl Roebling’s grave,” Caesar said.

Florianfilm also videotaped in Brooklyn, Cincinnati, New Jersey and Muelhausen, Germany. The documentary was commissioned by the German-French public broadcaster ARTE.

The documentary’s distributor, Autentic GmbH, said there will be 90-minute and 52-minute versions prepared, as well as an English-language version. A European air date has not been announced.

How much of the Saxonburg footage has made it into the final version is unknown, he said.

There is no word whether an American television/cable/online network might show the documentary.

Still, Caesar said, “We are thrilled to get this worldwide exposure, to be part of this program.”

2023 is the 191st anniversary of Saxonburg’s founding and the 181st anniversary of Roebling receiving his first patent for his wirerope-twisting techniques.