Hansa Canal

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Hansakanal is the name of a planned but never built canal , which was initially also called the Bramsche-Stade Canal or the North Sea Canal .

course

The planned waterway should branch off from the Mittelland Canal in Bramsche in a northerly direction, cross the Weser at Achim and flow into the Elbe at Stade .

purpose

The canal was intended to considerably shorten the journey from the Rhine-Ruhr region to the German seaports of Bremen and Hamburg and thereby make the industrial areas in the Rhine catchment area more independent of the Dutch seaports. In addition, the competitive advantage of English coal on the German market should be reduced by falling freight costs for Ruhr coal.

Historical development

The first draft plans were drawn up in 1919–1922 by the Bremen hydraulic engineer Ludwig Plate and presented to the public. Various local residents and lobby groups organized themselves in canal associations (including municipalities and chambers of commerce ).

During the Weimar Republic there was intense struggle for the project. In particular, the Reich Ministry of Transport campaigned for the construction of the Hansa Canal and applied for a corresponding budget estimate for the supplementary budget of the Reich in 1926 and the budget for 1927. The unions were also among the supporters. They argued that the construction of economically sensible channels could also represent a job creation measure and should be tackled, especially in times of crisis. In 1930, mine director Brandi also supported the then Chancellor Heinrich Brüning for the Hansa Canal: After the Hansa Canal has been completed, according to Brandi, it will be possible to employ 30,000 additional miners in the Ruhr area due to the easier removal of the Ruhr coal.

In October 1926, the Prussian Finance Minister Hermann Höpker-Aschoff rejected the construction of further canals because, in his opinion, coal is increasingly being processed at the place of extraction, i.e. it does not need to be transported away in large quantities. In 1930, Chancellor Brüning rejected the proposal by Brandi and others to include the Hansakanal project in the government's job creation program.

Despite concrete route planning and long-term advertising measures, the project could not prevail in the long run against the competition from the Reichsbahn and the upcoming truck transport. The project also failed due to the high construction costs and the fact that the economy was given alternatives for freight transport by water from the Ruhr area to Bremen or Hamburg by rebuilding the coastal canal and the Elbe Lateral Canal and extending the Mittelland Canal to the east has been. The plans for the western section (from the Mittelland Canal to the Weser) were finally discontinued in 1950, those for the eastern section (from the Weser to the Elbe) in 1955.

Large parts of the planned route have now been built over.

Resumption of discussion

In the 1990s, the old plans to build a Hansa Canal were taken up again. The parallel Hansalinie autobahn is to be relieved of excessive heavy traffic by building the canals.

literature

  • Benno Dräger: Hafenstadt Lohne - Hansakanal. A missed opportunity for wages? In: Made to measure . Catalog for the exhibition of the same name at the Lohne Industrial Museum . February 19, 2010 to August 8, 2010. pp. 226–241
  • Björn Vasel: Hansa Canal - a waterway that remained a dream . In: General household = calendar 2012, newspaper publisher Krause, Stade, p. 63ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Heinz Hofmann: Ludwig Plate . State Archive Bremen ( Memento from October 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Federal Archives: Supplementary Budget for 1926
  3. ^ J. Marschak: Means of transport and job creation . In: The work. Journal of trade union politics and economics . Edition 11/1926. P.685 (PDF; 4.5 MB)
  4. ↑ Federal Archives: Price Policy of the Reich Government and Job Creation Program . Meeting of the Reich Chancellor with representatives of the Reich Association of German Industry . 4th August 1930
  5. ↑ Chroniknet.de: October 10, 1926
  6. ↑ Götz Warncke: Transport routes of the future . 1995 ( Memento from January 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive )