Navigation on the Upper Rhine

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Map Hochrhein.png

The Hochrheinschifffahrt was commercial shipping between Lake Constance and Basel from the 11th to the middle of the 19th century.

Early history

The Upper Rhine was already used in pre-Roman times. In the Roman era ships of the Classis Germanica sailed on the river section. The military importance of the river section, however, was at times more important than the economic. Due to the disintegration of the transport network after the fall of the Roman Empire , the Upper Rhine only gained new importance as a transport route in the Carolingian period with the newly established monasteries .

Ships at Stein am Rhein

Shipping on the Upper Rhine , which was resumed in the Middle Ages, goes back to the 11th century. It reached from Constance to Schaffhausen and below the Rhine Falls to the Hüninger Chapel below Basel . After it was founded in 1045, Schaffhausen quickly developed into an important stacking and transshipment point for goods transported on the river, especially salt, due to the Rhine Falls as an insurmountable obstacle. The goods were delivered from Lake Constance above the Rhine Falls and transported further down the Rhine below.

Count Rudolf IV of Habsburg-Laufenburg issued a letter of safe conduct to Italian merchants in 1372 for the journey on the Rhine to Laufenburg. Tariff documents from 1401 show that the Upper Rhine was used by ships from Schaffhausen, Bern , Friborg , Zurich and Lucerne . Especially in Laufenburg, shipping developed into an important source of income because of the running and the necessary transport of goods overland past it as well as the roping of the ships.

Transport of goods and people

Customs documents from 1530 show that mainly cargo ships from Schaffhausen and Zurich sailed on the Upper Rhine. They had various loads, including steel, iron, cattle, hides, salt, cheese, wool, southern wine (Malvasia, Muscatel), as well as silk and pearls for merchants from Milan and Venice. People were also transported, including visitors to the health resort of Baden in Switzerland and to the Zurzach trade fair . In 1784 a Weidling capsized in Waldshut and 40 people drowned. Ships up to 50 tons operated on the Aare and Hochrhein.

Boat guilds

A number of ship guilds had economic advantages through shipping traffic on the Upper Rhine. From Konstanz to Schaffhausen that was the Konstanzer Schifferzunft (upper water shipping ). Below the Rhine Falls as far as Zurzach, the Schaffhausen skippers were responsible for low-water shipping. The Koblenzer Stüdler took over up to the mouth of the Aare. They pulled the ships that came from the Aare in central Switzerland on ropes through the Koblenzer Laufen upstream to Zurzach until 1858. The Laufenburger Laufenknechte had the contractual rights for the Rhine traffic up to the Rhine bridge Säckingen . From there to the Hüninger Chapel near Basel, the Rhine comrades exercised the right to sail and fish. They were strictly organized and had their own jurisdiction , which was confirmed to them again by Emperor Maximilian I in 1519 and by Empress Maria Theresia in 1767. In 1808 the rights of the Rhine comrades to the border river that was newly created in 1801 were sealed for the last time in a federation between the Grand Duchy of Baden and Switzerland.

Monopoly position of the Laufenburger Laufenknechte and Karrer

Roping a ship on both banks of the Rhine through the Laufen near Laufenburg (1875)

Shipping developed in Laufenburg because of the river obstacle more than in other places to a considerable source of income for the local guild of Laufenknechte and Karrer . Shipping was dependent on the help of the experienced men, so that they gained a monopoly on the Upper Rhine. The Laufenknechte roped the unloaded ships above the Laufens from both banks on ropes with up to 15 men each through the rapids and rocks. The goods themselves were transported in Laufenburg by the Karrer overland over the mountain. During floods, the ships themselves were also transported around the Laufen by road, also by the carts . This process was called riding . The rights and fees of the Karrer were permanently contractually regulated (Karrerordnung). The Laufenknechten had the right to buy the ships downstream and to sail on and then to sell them again in Basel or Strasbourg . With the Laufenknechten, the Laufenknechtsordnung was repeatedly renewed over the centuries. With the council of Laufenburg in 1451 there was a contract between the boatmen from Bern, Lucerne, Zurich and other places to rop through the ships on the Rhine. At the time of the Zurzach trade fair, 1575 Zurich shipmen complained that no other ship was allowed to sail down the Rhine during the fair because the runner-men had to devote themselves exclusively to the fair ships. The peak of shipping traffic was reached with the beginning of modern times around 1500.

End of shipping

At the beginning of the 19th century, the country roads had improved so much that shipping traffic on the Upper Rhine fell significantly. The entrance of the Upper Rhine-rail transport led the final demise of the shipping traffic and in the mid-19th century Hochrheinflößerei an affiliated guilds. Between 1841 and 1851 only 19 ships sailed downstream in Laufenburg. In 1889 the privileges of the rafters were lifted and rafting was released. Shipping had already come to a standstill at this point. When the Rheinfelden hydropower plant was built, the Rhine was dammed up from 1895 onwards without building a lock system . After 1908 the Laufen near Laufenburg was blown up in order to build the Laufenburg power station . The 30 meter long lock is only designed for small vessels.

Ideas for making the High Rhine navigable in the 20th century

Passenger ship on the Upper Rhine near Dörflingen

As early as 1929, Switzerland and Germany contractually stipulated that "the execution of a large shipping route on the Upper Rhine from Basel to Lake Constance should be sought ...". In the 1950s there were plans to modernize the High Rhine for navigation. The first ideas went back to the Swiss engineer Rudolf Gelpke . The new plans of the “Swiss-German Technical Commission for the Making the High Rhine Navigable” in “Project 1961” included the bypassing of the Rhine Falls through locks and a tunnel on the left bank of the Rhine as well as the bypassing or the construction of new river power plants. Ships up to 1350 t deadweight and 80 meters in length, in exceptional cases up to 2000 t, should be able to navigate the river section. The project costs were estimated at 527 million Swiss francs. There was massive resistance to the project from the population of both neighboring countries, but also from the German and Swiss railway companies, who feared a loss of income, so that it had to be abandoned.

Recently, various routes on the Upper Rhine for passenger traffic have been used for tourist purposes, for example between Kreuzlingen and Schaffhausen by the Swiss shipping company Untersee and Rhein , in Waldshut-Tiengen or in Laufenburg and Bad Säckingen . For recreational boating, there are now towing boats at the power plant levels . The list of landing stages on the Upper Rhine provides a comprehensive overview .

Between the Rhine port of Rheinfelden and Basel, the Upper Rhine is navigable for large cargo ships via the locks at the Birsfelden power plant and at the Augst / Wyhlen barrage.

See also

literature

  • Max Baumann: Ships, wagons and railways: the competition between river and land transport. Swiss Society for Economic and Social History. Volume 25 (2010) ( online ).
  • Andreas Gruschke:  The Upper Rhine. An Alemannic river landscape. Schillinger, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995,  ISBN 3-89155-183-5 .
  • Theo Keller: The economic importance of shipping on the Upper Rhine. Row: Northeast Swiss Association for Shipping Rhine-Bodensee No. 52. Goldach 1954.
  • Alfons Schmitt, Wolfram Duma: The economic importance of the canalization of the High Rhine above Rheinfeld. ZfV 1961, issue 3. ( online ).
  • Ruedi Schneider: Making the High Rhine Navigable - A Chronicle.
  • Rudolf Steiner: The expansion of the High Rhine to a shipping route. The story of a failed major project. Dissertation. ( Online )
  • Daniel L. Vischer: Making the High Rhine Navigable to Lake Constance - Review of the former projects. In: Water Management, Edition 10/2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Steiner: The expansion of the High Rhine to a shipping route. The story of a failed major project. Dissertation University of Mannheim, p. 11, 18f. ( online ).
  2. ^ Rudolf Metz: Geological regional studies of the Hotzenwald. Moritz Schauenburg Verlag, Lahr / Schwarzwald 1980, p. 593.
  3. ^ A b Rudolf Metz: Geological regional studies of the Hotzenwald. Moritz Schauenburg Verlag, Lahr / Schwarzwald 1980, p. 594.
  4. ^ A b c d Rudolf Metz: Geological regional studies of the Hotzenwald. Moritz Schauenburg Verlag, Lahr / Schwarzwald 1980, p. 596.
  5. ^ Rudolf Metz: Geological regional studies of the Hotzenwald. Moritz Schauenburg Verlag, Lahr / Schwarzwald 1980, p. 595.
  6. ^ Rudolf Metz: Geological regional studies of the Hotzenwald. Moritz Schauenburg Verlag, Lahr / Schwarzwald 1980, p. 597.
  7. ↑ Navigation on the Upper Rhine. Injustice to the soul. In: Spiegel Online , July 17, 1963.
  8. ↑ Making the High Rhine Navigable - A Chronicle On: www.salzmaenner.ch/
  9. ↑ Bondsee landscape and navigation on the Upper Rhine. Memorandum, report and opinion of the German Council for Land Care on the problem of making the Upper Rhine and Lake Constance navigable. Issue 3-1965
  10. ^ Stadtwerke Waldshut-Tiengen. Rhine shipping
  11. ↑ Fahrgastschifffahrt-Laufenburg.de
  12. ↑ Passenger shipping in Bad Säckingen