Elsflether Weserzoll
The Elsflether Weserzoll was a shipping tariff on the Weser that was levied by Oldenburg from 1623 to 1820 .
history
Early on, the county of Oldenburg was anxious to create an additional source of money on the Lower Weser. Count Anton I (1505–1573) tried it for a long time without success. In 1623 his grandson Count Anton Günther succeeded through negotiating skills in obtaining a customs diploma from Emperor Ferdinand II . This document, which was confirmed again in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 , authorized the Oldenburg to charge a fee for all ships going up and down the river . During the peace negotiations in Osnabrück , the Oldenburg interests were represented by Mylius von Gnadenfeld , an envoy of the count. The payments were justified by the increased costs for securing the fairway and dike security. Irrespective of the fact that the actual burden had to be borne by the farmers lying on the dike .
As a victim, the city of Bremen has long resisted this duty for understandable reasons. In 1637 Count Anton Günther even had soldiers deployed in Elsfleth to force payments. 1652 the emperor imposed the imperial ban against Bremen because the city still refused to pay the duty. In 1653, at the Regensburg Reichstag, the Regensburg settlement was reached , in which Bremen recognized the Weser tariff. The relations between the manorial Oldenburg and the bourgeois and commercial Hanseatic city were heavily strained as a result.
Initially the customs station was in Brake-Harrien , but it was moved to Elsfleth a year later. Customs brought considerable sums to the Oldenburger Cammerkasse : in 1801 it was 135,000 thalers in customs income. In Regensburg (as the seat of the Perpetual Reichstag ) it was decided in 1802 to abolish the Weser tariffs. In 1803, Oldenburg, which had meanwhile become a duchy, received the offices of Wildeshausen , Vechta and Cloppenburg in return for renouncing the Weser customs . Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig agreed to the exchange reluctantly and under pressure. However, due to the length of the negotiations, the actual cancellation dragged on for another seventeen years until 1820.
Weser tariffs
The Elsflether Weserzoll was only one of many Weser tariffs: in 1800 there were a total of 24 customs offices between Bremen and Münden . In Elsfleth, however, was the closest customs station. In 1856 the last Weser tariffs were discontinued due to the increasing competitive pressure caused by the railroad .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Hans Friedl: Mylius von Gnadenfeld, Hermann. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , pp. 509-510. ( online ).