The passenger ship Fridericus Rex was built in 1927 under the name Rheinpfalz in the shipyard of the Winkler brothers in the rural municipality of Kalkberge on the Rüdersdorfer waters . The shipping company Nobiling put one of the first diesel-powered passenger ships in the Berlin area into service with the Rheinpfalz in 1927. It was mainly used in the liner service between the pier at the Jannowitzbrücke in the center of Berlin and Teupitz . Due to the popularity and speed of the ship, the Berliners nicknamed it the "Teupitzexpress".
In 1931, due to the increase in population, the large community of Kalkberge (called Rüdersdorf from 1934) was created from the rural communities of Kalkberge, Rüdersdorf and Tasdorf with 10,707 inhabitants. It combined both the industrial facilities (cement factories, lime works and limestone quarries) and the rural areas of the three communities. Excursions with the excursion boats, generally known as steamers, to the lakes and forests surrounding the greater Berlin area were popular with the population . With the beginning of the Second World War , there were restrictions on passenger traffic, including on the waters of the Berlin area. The reasons for this were a shortage of fuel and a lack of staff. Many ships were temporarily or over a longer period laid . 1944 confiscated the German Wehrmacht , the Rheinpfalz and led her to the Danube . Light anti-aircraft armament was built. The mine clearance ships of the German, Hungarian and Romanian navies available in the area of the Danube at this time of the war were tied in the lower reaches of the river and on the Black Sea coast, which was still under German control , and were numerically unable to withstand the danger Encounter mines in the river. In the summer of 1944, around 49 ships were available to the Inspector of Mine Clearance Service Danube (IMRDD) for military use. The majority of the ships were requisitioned civilian ships. They were hastily converted into clearing vehicles. After the Second World War, the motor ship was chartered to the then largest Bavarian shipping company, "Bayerischer Lloyd". The company concentrated on creating a scheduled line service as well as excursion and occasional services. After the war, means of transport such as trains, buses and cars were only available to a very limited extent and most of the Danube crossings were still impassable. The shipping company saw the opportunity to defuse this situation by deploying its fleet. No longer exactly determinable, presumably in 1960/61 the ship was sold to the "Steibl Personenschiffahrt Kelheim". In 1974 it was sold on to the "Donauschiffahrt Wurm & Köck" based in Passau . When it was taken over in 1984 by the “Regensburger Personenschiffahrt Gebrüder Klinger” company, the passenger ship received extensive renovation work that greatly changed the original look. It was renamed Regensburg .
The ship
Fridericus Rex in the port of Potsdam in front of the state parliament
In 1998 the "Havel-Dampfschiffahrt Potsdam GmbH" acquired the desolate ship and transferred it to the shipyard Bolle GmbH in Neudorben on the Pareyer connecting canal near the Elbe . There it was very laboriously dismantled according to old photos in the style of the 1920s. Since the beginning of the 1999 season, the saloon ship has been sailing the waters around Potsdam . With the takeover of the Weisse Flotte Potsdam by the owners of Haveldampf-Schiffahrt Potsdam in 2000, the ship is integrated into the schedule of the entire company “Schiffahrt in Potsdam”. With a length of 29.97 meters and a ship width of 4.78 meters, the ship can navigate almost all of the region's smaller bodies of water, such as the Griebnitz Canal and the Glindowsee . The shallow draft of only 1.09 meters enables the planned routes to be adhered to even at low water levels. The steamer-like chimney can be folded down so that areas with low bridge clearance heights in the Berlin area can also be served. The minimum headroom with the chimney in place is 4.14 meters. On special customer request, charter and themed trips are also offered with this historic ship .
literature
Dieter Schubert: German inland passenger ships. Illustrated register of ships. Uwe Welz Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-933177-10-3 .
Kurt Groggert: Passenger shipping on the Havel and Spree (Berlin contributions to the history of technology and industrial culture , volume 10). Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-7759-0153-1 .
Karola Paepke, H.-J. Rook (ed.): Sailors and steamers on the Havel and Spree . 1st edition. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, 1993, ISBN 3-89488-032-5 .
Dieter and Helga Schubert: Passenger shipping in Berlin . In the series: pictures of shipping . Sutton-Verlag, Erfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-86680-120-2 .
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