Boizenburg freight route

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The Boizenburg Freight Route is a prehistoric and early historical long-distance route that leads in an almost straight line from Boizenburg / Elbe to Fredeburg . From the 10th century it formed part of the oldest salt road from Lüneburg to Lübeck and is now used as a cycle path in the northern section.

course

South of Boizenburg

Boizenburger freight route in Fredeburg
information sign
History Dyn. Map

The starting point of the Boizenburg freight route was Lüneburg. From there, the route continued via Neetze to the Elbe and crossed it between Radegast and Gothmann , in order to cross the Boize in what is now Boizenburg .

At Gothmann there was an Elbe ford, which had formed here as a result of the tidal backwater from deposits in the river, so that the undyed Elbe arms had only a shallow water depth and could be flowed through one after the other. The crossing of the Elbe near Gothmann initially deserved preference over the Elbfurten further downstream near Barförde and Artlenburg , because on the right side of the Elbe the Boize valley cuts through the heights of the Ice Age fissures and enables an almost level transition. On the other hand, after crossing the Elbe near Artlenburg, the steep bank on the right bank of the Elbe had to be overcome with heights of up to 30 m, which was a laborious and lengthy undertaking even when transporting two-wheeled ox carts. To protect the Elbe crossing, there was a wooden hilltop castle on the Bollenberg in Gothmann, which was burned down three times by the Danes under King Waldemar II between 1201 and 1214 and was then not rebuilt.

North of Boizenburg

The route began at the Boizenburg harbor and left the village in the direction of Schwartow. Then the path led west of the Boize along the eastern edge of the Schwanenheyde via Heidekrug to Leisterförde . There he continued via Fortkrug , Langenlehsten , Besenthal to the water jug ​​near Sarnekow . Here the Wasserkrüger Weg branched off to Mölln , while the Boizenburger freight route crossed the upper end of the Hellbach valley and, without touching any other villages, ran to the crossroads to Fredeburg.

The almost dead straight route between Boizenburg and Fredeburg, which runs on the dry ridge of the Geest, is striking. There are hardly any settlements along the way, but a noticeable number of place names ending in "Krug".

connections

In Fredeburg, the Boizenburger freight route met the long-distance route from Hammaburg in the west to Jumne ( Wollin ) in the east. The Boizenburg freight route was thus also the shortest land connection from Lüneburg to Schwerin and Dobin Castle . To the north, the Boizenburg freight route continued on the eastern branch line of what would later become the Old Salt Road in the direction of Lübeck. The Battle of Schmilau took place in 1093 near the crossroads of Fredeburg .

history

The oldest written mention of the Boizenburg Freight Route dates from 1361. The origins of the Boizenburg Freight Route, however, probably go back to the Bronze Age . The traders transported tin and copper for bronze production to the Baltic Sea region and from there to Scandinavia, while in the opposite direction mainly amber was traded.

The route experienced its heyday with the production of salt in Lüneburg from the middle of the 10th century. This was filled into barrels and transported on ox carts or horse-drawn carts in the direction of Lübeck and from there shipped to the Baltic Sea region, where it was needed for the preservation of fish. The Boizenburg freight route is therefore the oldest salt road going north.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the Boizenburg freight route lost large parts of its traffic to the Alte Salzstrasse . The reason for this were frequent feuds between the Mecklenburg gentlemen, which made the path too unsafe. Instead of going to Boizenburg, the salt was now transported by water over the Delvenau to the Buchhorster Mühle (where the Mühlendamm ended navigability) and from there in barrels duty-free by land to Lübeck.

From 1350 onwards, a watchtower was built at the Fredeburg Way Cross as part of the Lübeck Landwehr . In 1361 the Boizenburg captain Vicko Moltke asked the Mölln council to advertise the use of the route from Boizenburg to Mölln, as it was now safe again. Instead, with the opening of the Stecknitz trip from 1398, continuous transport by water to Lübeck became possible, which was faster and cheaper.

Cycle path

The Boizenburg freight route is suitable as a cycle path because the original route has largely been preserved, but is mostly car-free. Although the paths are unpaved, they are easy to drive on with sturdy wheels (unsuitable for racing bikes) and lead through lonely meadows and forests. Apart from the ascent when leaving Boizenburg, there are no significant inclines. From the junction with today's K4 south of Leisterförde, the historic route was built over with a little-traveled asphalt road (K4 / K79 / K28) via Langenlehsten and Besenthal to Sarnekow, where car-free forest paths begin again.

Alternatively, you can keep the original direction at the junction with the K4 and follow a path that is barely recognizable at times to Bürgerhof, cross the Mühlenbach in a westerly direction and take a small path northwards to reach the destroyed village of Wendisch Lieps (information boards). In the border area, the path has completely disappeared for about 500 m before a good forest path leads back to Besenthal on the Lauenburg side (map, better GPS required).

The route from Boizenburg to Heidekrug can be traveled by car. From there the journey can only be continued on foot or by bike behind the restaurant of a horse farm through the Feldmark and the adjoining forest before reaching the paved county road 4. The path is then expanded to Sarnekow, but from the Hellbachtal to Fredeburg can only be used by bike. From Sarnekow the street name is officially Alter Güterweg , shortly before reaching Fredeburg the name changes to Wasserkrüger Weg .

There are no places to shop or stop for a break.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Carl Conrad v. Hammerstein-Loxten: The Bardengau. A historical study of its conditions and the property of the Billunger , Hanover 1869. Page 522 describes the route Lüneburg - Neetze - Boizenburg as Heerweg
  2. ^ Siegfried Spantig: In the wheel of history. Eichenverlag, Hagenow 2003, page 36.
  3. ↑ On sedimentation and its effects in this area: Jobst-Heinrich Wendler: Structure and age structure of the Holocene of the Lüneburg Elbmarsch. In: Ice Age and the Present. Volume 16, Page 113 (114) On sedimentation ( Memento from January 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ DHWC Hiibbe: Artlenburg, the Saxons border of the Emperor Charlemagne and the country Sadelbande later Duchy of Lauenburg. In: Archives of the Association for the History of the Duchy of Lauenburg. 1902, page 55 [1]
  5. ↑ The castrum wotmunde
  6. ^ Dieter Greve: Field name atlas for the southern west Mecklenburg. Volume I, Schwerin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940207-25-8 , page 106.
  7. ^ Siegfried Spantig: In the wheel of history. Eichenverlag, Hagenow 2003, page 44.
  8. ↑ Graphical representation of the route with Reinhold Beranek: Early historical long-distance routes in the Stormarn district and in the Lübeck area , 2007, page 38 ( Early historical long-distance routes in the Stormarn district ( Memento from May 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ; PDF))
  9. ^ A b Wolfgang Prange: Settlement history of the state of Lauenburg in the Middle Ages. In: Sources and research on the history of Schleswig-Holstein. Vol. 41, Wachholtz, Neumünster 1960, page 47
  10. ^ Herrmann Heineken: The salt trade between Lüneburg and Lübeck up to the beginning of the 15th century , Berlin 1908, pages 33 and 35.
  11. ↑ Reinhold Beranek: Early-historical long-distance paths in the Stormarn district and in the Lübeck area , 2007, page 45 fn. 58 ( Early-historical long-distance paths in the Stormarn district ( Memento from May 17, 2017 in the Internet Archive ; PDF))
  12. ^ Hans-Georg Kaack: The shipping on the Stecknitz before 1390 . In: William Boehart, Cordula Bornefeld, Christian Lopau (eds.): The story of the Stecknitz trip . Kurt Viebranz Verlag, Schwarzenbek 2003, ISBN 3-529-02060-5 , p. 19 .
  13. ^ A b Jörg Meyn: Sachsen-Lauenburg in the High and Late Middle Ages . In: Eckardt Opitz (ed.): Duchy of Lauenburg. The country and its history . Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1998, ISBN 3-921595-29-0 , p. 113 .
  14. ^ Jörg Meyn: Sachsen-Lauenburg in the High and Late Middle Ages . In: Eckardt Opitz (ed.): Duchy of Lauenburg. The country and its history . Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1998, ISBN 3-921595-29-0 , p. 114-116 .