Men's ferry
The men's ferry was a Lübeck ferry across the Trave .
Location and name
The men's ferry ran about one kilometer downstream from Gothmund and enabled the passage over the Trave in the course of the road from Lübeck to Travemünde (today's Travemünder Allee ). In its place is the men's tunnel , which opened in 2005 .
The part of the name Herren- is derived - as with the nearby Herrenwyk - from herring , which was a fish that was often caught in this area of the Trave in the Middle Ages .
history
The river ferry was first mentioned in a document at this point in 1190. At that time the ferry house was called Godesmannshus (Gottesmanns-Haus); probably a hermit worked here as a ferryman . The ferry was owned by the Counts of Holstein . Since the road connection to Travemünde became increasingly important for Lübeck, the city council tried to bring the ferry into municipal ownership. In 1247 it was contractually stipulated that the ferry (together with the Travemünder Tower and the Priwall ferry ) should be in the hands of the city as long as the counts remained in the city's governors . However, since there was still the risk that the contract would be terminated and that both the important ferries and the fortress that dominated the Trave estuary could come under Holstein control again, the council continued to seek a permanent acquisition. This was finally achieved through a contract signed on January 13, 1329. In return for a payment of 1060 marks Pfennige , Count Johann III. not only completely surrendered both ferries and the Travemünde fortress tower to Lübeck, but also undertook not to install a new ferry anywhere on the lower reaches of the Trave. With that, the land connection to Travemünde was finally reliably in Lübeck's possession. When the city took over the ferry, the ferryman was employed by the council and was directly subordinate to it, which underlined the importance of the ferry connection.
Originally the Trave ran in a bend southwest of the ferry house. In the years 1850 to 1854, however, the river was regulated to improve navigability. In 1850, among other things, a puncture was made northeast of the ferry house. From then on, the ferry operated at this point, while the old Travelauf - the so-called traffic jam - laid a solid road embankment. The relocation of the ferry also brought about a change in operation: if it had previously been a hand- pegged and controlled ferry , the men's ferry was a chain ferry from February 10, 1852 .
During the second half of the 19th century, the inefficient ferry, especially when it came to transferring wagons and carriages, increasingly became an obstacle to traffic on the much-used road between Lübeck and Travemünde. In 1901, the construction of the Herrenbrücke began right next to the ferry and was opened to traffic on April 1, 1902. The men's ferry, which was no longer needed, ceased operations and the ferry house, which dates back to the 16th or 17th century, served exclusively as an excursion restaurant until it burned down on August 5, 1905.
On April 24, 1909, the steamer Baltic collided with the Herrenbrücke, which was badly damaged. In order to guarantee the connection over the Trave, the old men's ferry had to be put back into operation for the duration of the repair work. On July 1, 1909, the restored Herrenbrücke was opened to traffic and the Herrenfähre was finally shut down.
literature
- Antjekathrin Graßmann : Die Fähre Lübeck , in: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Antiquity , Volume 53. Verlag Schmidt-Römhild , Lübeck 1973
- Vaterstädtische Blätter , August 13, 1905. Verlag Gebrüder Borchers, Lübeck
- Rudolf Schwab / Wolfgang Becker (ed.): Yearbook of the Port Construction Society , Volume 38, p. 22 f. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.
Coordinates: 53 ° 54 ′ 6 ″ N , 10 ° 46 ′ 21 ″ E