Bremen buoys and beacons

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Bremer buoy in front of the Bremer beacon in the Hohe Weg Watt

The Bremer ton and beacons beings was the organizational structure, commissioned by the city of Bremen since (at least) the early 15th century the laying, setting up and maintaining of navigational aids  - such as floating tons and fixed beacons  - in the lower and outer Weser operation . For the longest time this task lay with the Bremen merchants , in 1878 the Prussian-Oldenburg-Bremen buoy and beacon office took over the competences and in 1921 finally the waterways direction of the German Reich .

The beginnings

The origin of the Bremen buoys and beacons is not documented. The oldest written record of fairway markings in the city dates back to June 16, 1410, when Bremen signed a peace treaty with the Rüstringen chiefs Edo Wiemken , Lübbe and Memme Sibet. In this, the people of Bremen were given the right to “ tunnen to leggen un kennunge to setten ” in the Weser estuary . The Rüstringer committed themselves to respect and protect them. It is likely that this agreement actually marks the beginning of the systematic marking of the Lower and Outer Weser by means of Bremen buoys and beacons, as the warlike conditions before the signing of the peace treaty may have made such a project difficult to carry out.

The question of sovereignty over the Weser was repeatedly disputed in the course of the following centuries. After the city had tried to prove its claims to the Lower Weser at the beginning of the 15th century with forged documents, which were supposedly issued by Emperor Heinrich V , Emperor Charles V confirmed the city's sovereignty over the Lower Weser on July 20, 1541 , including the right to prosecute and convict pirates , to set sea marks and to collect tonnage:

"We Karl the Five, by the grace of God, Romischer Kayser ... publicly confess with this letter and do, by all means, announce the sy on the straum of the Weser from and under the town of Bremen to the Saltzen, see on baiden banks or on the side of the water streambed all Oberkait, right, justigkait, jurisdiction, mocked and mocked have and practice. "

On the other hand there were later the interests of the Oldenburg counts , who were granted the right by Emperor Ferdinand II in 1623 to levy customs duties on all ships going upriver and downstream, the so-called " Elsflether Weserzoll ", as well as the claims of Sweden from the 17th century , which as administrator of the imperial territory Bremen-Verden tried to gain control of the Weser estuary with the fortress town Carlsburg .

The front of the tunnels

The coat of arms of the Bremen merchants on the Schütting

A few years after the contract with the Rüstringers was signed, in 1426 the city ​​council assigned the fairway marking to the Olderlüden des Koopmanns ('parents of the merchant'), the chairman of the Bremen merchants. For the organization of the buoy and beacon system and the collection of a fee to finance the navigation mark, the parents appointed a committee from their ranks, the Vorstenderen der Tunnen ( `` Head of the Tunnels ''), who performed this task until 1849.

The buoys and beacons

The correct setting of the navigation marks was a responsible task, as it was of great importance for the safe navigation of the Weser and thus for the city's sea ​​trade . The first navigation marks were used as navigation aids for shipping on the German North Sea coast as early as the 11th century - the oldest surviving buoy was placed in front of Mellum in 1066 . River and sea buoys have been laid out since that time to mark shoals or places where a change of course was to be made; For orientation of the boatmen, additional permanently installed beacons were set up on the coast or in the mudflats , which, like other landmarks that could be seen from afar (e.g. church towers), had a high, distinctive shape. The number of tons laid out (and beacons set) increased steadily, especially since over the centuries it became increasingly difficult to mark a safe fairway between Bremen and the open sea due to the increasing siltation of the Weser.

year 1457 1483 1585 1634 1690 1791 1825 1859
Number of tons 2 14th 15th 16 39 46 59 74
Historical illustration of the key barrel in the Outer Weser

The location of the navigation marks was recorded in maps and published in notices. The oldest known nautical map of the Weser from 1588 comes from the Dutch cartographer Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer , the oldest printed navigation instructions for merchants from 1642. The key bucket , first laid out north of Wangerooge on the Roten Sand in 1664, was particularly important for navigating the Weser . which is still in use today. The Bremen beacon was also important for navigation in the Outer Weser area . In 1697, after lengthy negotiations with Oldenburg, Bremen received permission to erect a beacon on the Hohe Weg Watt . After the first beacon, called Smidtsteert , burned down in 1783, a new large marker was built a little further south at considerable expense. From the beginning of the 19th century a lightship was laid out here, which was finally replaced by the Hohe Weg lighthouse in 1856 .

Responsible for laying out, hauling in and maintaining the buoys and beacons on behalf of the merchants was a so-called bar master , who was provided with a buoy by the parents for this purpose . The sea barrels were laid out every year on February 22nd and recovered on November 11th so that they were not destroyed or moved by ice in winter . Between November and February they were overhauled, cleared of algae and re- tarred to keep them watertight. The spherical roller bearings the city was on the Teerhof against the Schlachte . The entire inventory of laid out and stored sea marks as well as other materials and equipment was recorded in a ton book for which the incumbent President of the parents was responsible.

The barge masters' barrel bojer were originally owned by the city, later privately owned. Various barrel boers - several of which were apparently sometimes in use at the same time - have been handed down, for example around 1533 The Drey Heroes of David or later The Black Eagle . The size of such a ship from 1573 was given with 45  load , the cost of a new building from 1625 with 6643  Reichstalers . The ships were built partly in Bremen, partly in the Netherlands and were stationed in Vegesack (presumably after the completion of the Vegesack harbor in 1623) . Since the setting of navigation signs and the collection of fees for the fairway marking were always sovereign tasks, the buoy buoys were armed. Before the use of convoy ships , such as the coat of arms of Bremen in the 17th and 18th centuries, the buoy were also used for escort or war journeys, e.g. B. in 1647 when the city tore piles out of the Weser by a barrel boar, which Oldenburg had rammed in near Elsfleth in order to raise customs on the river, which was not recognized by Bremen. In addition, the buoy was also used to clear broken ships and for trips by the council, or they were rented out when they were not needed for other purposes.

The ton money

To finance the entire barrel and beacons beings to pay a fee, called tons of money (or barrel and beacons money ) - tons of money subject were all Bremen as foreign vessels beyond Langwarden (at the tip of the peninsula Butjadingen sailed) and Bremen navigational aids used to enter or exit the Weser estuary. This did not only apply to ships that sailed on the Weser, but also to those who sailed from the Jade , the Geeste , the Lune , the Hunte or the Land Wursten . Inland boatmen on the Lower Weser were probably exempt from the tax.

The amount of the tonnage was based - in addition to a base amount for the ship - on the value of the cargo and was four grotes per 100  marks of cargo value . In the 17th century, foreign boatmen had to pay double the tonnage of Bremen boatmen. A special levy was levied to finance special expenses, such as the construction of the Bremen beacon . In the event of non-payment, double the amount was due as a fine. Initially collected by the harbor master directly in Bremen, over the course of time the parents commissioned agents to collect the levy at various locations, for example in Geestendorf (documented from 1628) in Vieland (documented from 1680), in Vegesack (documented from 1686) and in temporarily also in Elsfleth.

The effort involved in calculating and managing the income was considerable, since in addition to the name of the shipper, his origin, the name and size of the ship, the type and quantity of his cargo, the number of journeys and the area of ​​shipping was recorded, for the tonnage to calculate. The oldest surviving account book for the barrel money comes from the year 1532 by Eltermann Dyryck Vasmer. An invoice from 1577 shows income of 1,057 marks and 29 grotes, with expenses of 789 marks and 7 grotes. The complex system repeatedly led to disputes and complaints from the skippers. Twice a year, the parents had to give an account of the income from the tonnage to the masons of the council, who were responsible for the Bremen city fortifications . Since the income and expenses of the buoy and beacon system were heavily dependent on the economy and the weather, the wall lords' cash register also balanced the balance sheet if more or less was earned than was required for the navigation mark.

The buoy and beacon office

Ton yard Bremerhaven 2010

Until 1849, the parents were responsible for the Bremen buoy and beacon system, then the Bremen Chamber of Commerce took over this task as the successor organization to the merchants. In 1876 the three states of Prussia , Oldenburg and Bremen founded the buoy and beacon office as a joint authority for the maintenance of the navigation marks in the Lower Weser and the Weser estuary. The tonnage was replaced by a fire and beacon bill and set up as the seat of the new office of the tonnage yard Bremerhaven at the mouth of the Geeste in Bremerhaven . The actual task of laying out and maintaining the navigation marks remained with Bremen. The best-known sea mark that was set up by the buoy and beacon office is the Roter Sand lighthouse , which went into operation in 1885 and is now a listed building. On April 1, 1921, the administration of the waterways and navigation marks finally passed into the sovereignty of the German Reich, first to the electricity construction administration , then to the waterways directorate and from 1950 to the waterways and shipping directorate . The buoy and beacon office was officially dissolved on February 1, 1934, which ended the independent Bremen buoy and beacon system. Today the buoy yard is the seat of the Bremerhaven Waterways and Shipping Authority , which has buoy laying and surveying vessels stationed here.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Christina Deggim: Inflated and run down. Sea buoys and beacons in sources of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce . In: Historical Society Bremen (Hrsg.): Bremisches Jahrbuch . tape 79 , 2000, ISSN  0341-9622 , p. 75-76 .
  2. ^ Diedrich Ehmck , Wilhelm von Bippen : Bremisches Urkundenbuch . tape IV . Bremen 1886, p. 524-526 .
  3. ^ Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X , p. 891 .
  4. ^ The shipping and fishing privilege of Charles V for Bremen of July 20, 1541. Bremen State Archives, accessed on February 23, 2011 .
  5. ↑ a b c The key bucket - a navigation mark of the Weser and of a special kind. (PDF; 1.8 MB) The engineer - IMSV, accessed on February 23, 2011 .
  6. ^ Karl Heinz Schwebel : Barrels and beacons . In: De Koopman tho Bremen - A five-century commemoration of the Bremen Chamber of Commerce . Bremen 1951, p. 40-43 .
  7. ^ Gerd Dettmann: The Bremen barrel bojer . In: Historical Society Bremen (Hrsg.): Bremisches Jahrbuch . tape 38 , 1939, ISSN  0341-9622 , p. VII f .
  8. ^ Peter Koster : Chronicle of the Imperial Free Imperial and Hanseatic City of Bremen 1600–1700 . Edition Temmen, Bremen 2004, p. 116 .
  9. ↑ Ulrich Weidinger: With cogs to the market square - Bremen's port structures from the early Middle Ages to the beginning of industrialization . Hauschild Verlag , Bremen 1997, ISBN 3-931785-09-2 , p. 319 .

literature

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