HaFraBa e.V. stands for the association Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte–Frankfurt–Basel (English: Association for the preparation of the motorway Hanseatic cities–Frankfurt–Basel) and was one of the first large Autobahn projects in Germany.
The association was founded on November 6, 1926 as Verein zum Bau einer Straße für den Kraftwagen-Schnellverkehr von Hamburg über Frankfurt a.M. nach Basel (English: Association for the building of a road for the automobile fast-moving traffic from Hamburg over Frankfurt to Basel) by Robert Otzen. It projected a motorway link from Hamburg to Hanover and from Frankfurt to Basel (and from Basel to Genoa). The marked-out route matches nearly the today's Autobahn 5 and the Northern part of the Autobahn 7.
On May 31, 1928 the association was renamed as the Verein zur Vorbereitung der Autostraße Hansestädte–Frankfurt–Basel to include the Hanseatic cities of Bremen and Lübeck into the planning. As the terms Hamburg and Hansestädte begin with the same letters the abbreviation HaFraBa could be maintained.
In 1930, for each city, detailed plannings of the linkage to the Hafraba was presented in summaries subtitled "Städte an den Hafrabastraßen" (English: Cities on the roads of Hafraba) by J. F. Amberger (Heidelberg), Adolf Elsaesser (directeur of urban planning of Mannheim), Dr. Theodor Krebs (Darmstadt), Maurer (Mainz), Dr. Rehorn (chief of traffic of Kassel) and Carl Thalenhorst (senator of building authorities of Bremen) in the newspaper Hafraba-Mitteilungsblatt.
As the public bodies saw no need to this project a toll system was planned to provide financing. The calculations resulted in the following prices:
At first, the project was rejected by the Nazis. After the takeover by Adolf Hitler, the plannings where partially adopted; the name of the association was changed to Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung der Reichsautobahnen (English: Society for the Preparation of the Autobahnen of the Third Reich).