Wood shortage

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An existing or imminent supply crisis for the raw material wood ( firewood or construction timber ) is referred to as a wood shortage . In particular, the term is used for Central Europe, where a severe shortage from the 16th century to the early 19th century is treated in numerous sources. A wood shortage and the resulting wood-saving measures became an important issue in almost all German regions. While a wood shortage as such was not denied in forestry and history for a long time, in 1986, triggered by the environmental historian Joachim Radkau , a year-long research controversy ("wood shortage debate") about the existence, extent and spatial and social effects of the supposedly or actually existing ones began Wood shortage and the associated ideological and economic backgrounds. At first, Rolf Peter Sieferle emerged as the opponent of Radkaus ; later numerous publications appeared which expanded or relativized Radkau's core statement or examined developments in certain regions.

In the history of forestry in the 20th century, it was the prevailing doctrine that the wood shortage was a problem for all social classes in all of Europe, a thesis that has now been disproved. It is undisputed that wood was noticeably scarce and that there have been numerous innovations to save wood. More recent studies emphasize that the wood shortage hit the poor harder than the wealthy; The rich were hardly affected. Supply crises also occasionally occurred in cities, for example in harsh winters. The supply of wood in cities was an important area of ​​conflict for poor relief .

Fears expressed about a future general lack of wood came from v. a. from academic circles and served the authorities to introduce new usage processes, renewed legislation as well as to discredit various traditional forest trades and the secondary use of the forests by farmers. The public debate about the wood shortage has also contributed significantly to the development of modern forestry . As a result, the German-speaking region became a pioneer in afforestation and Japan a pioneer in sustainable forestry in Asia.

Fears of a wood shortage mark the beginning of the modern environmental movement at the same time as the "nature cult" of forest romanticism during the Enlightenment . The wood shortage in the 18th century can also be seen in the context of public education and moralizing efforts. For example, ideas competitions were held in which academies and learned societies discussed the wood shortage in the range of topics from philosophy, theology and aesthetics to economic and political questions.

Debate about the wood shortage in forest and environmental history

Whether or not there was a real shortage of wood in the 18th or 19th century has only been discussed bitterly since the 1980s. Various researchers and regional studies now posed the question of the scarcity of resources and their significance in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A wood shortage as such had not previously been questioned in research.

The replacement of the raw material wood and its forms of use by coal and steel was received in the progress myth of industrialization, as portrayed by Werner Sombart or Franz Schnabel , as the epitome of human emancipation from the “barriers” of nature. The slowly growing natural material wood and the associated forest trades such as ash burners , charcoal burners , bark collectors (for the Gerberlohe ) and Harzer were connoted with want and need.

For example, in his book Modern Capitalism , published in 1916, Sombart described the replacement of wood as an energy source by coal as an essential prerequisite for industrialization. For a long time there was no doubt about the reality of the numerous wood emergency complaints.

In more recent regional studies, for example in Switzerland, the question of the actual availability of the resource wood for the city and landscape of Zurich was answered differently. Cities suffered, e.g. B. in unusually cold winters, sometimes with a lack of wood. For example, 1763 was a particularly cold winter. This meant a higher need for heating material and fewer transport options. Frozen Lake Zurich , too little snow in the Sihl Forest and fluctuations in water in the Sihl made it difficult to transport wood into the city. In the countryside, on the other hand, there was usually enough building and fuel material. In this respect the lack of wood was not permanent; Despite occasional bottlenecks, storage in Zurich was not expanded.

Wood transport with a forest railway in the Sihlwald in the 19th century

In Switzerland, wood shortage became a literary topos that accompanied appeals to save wood. A possible future lack of wood was spoken of in relatively general terms, without specifying where and in which situations a lack could occur.

Old salt works in Reichenhall

In Germany there were important differences between north German saltworks cities such as Lüneburg , which no longer owned forests after clearing the surrounding forest for the purpose of firewood, and the alpine saltworks such as Reichenhall , which could fall back on forests under their own management. While Lüneburg is still considered a standard example of pre-industrial forest desolation and accordingly had to import its wood from Mecklenburg after its own forest resources had been cleared, a real fear psychosis was rampant in Reichenhall around 1600 with regard to a coming shortage of firewood and brewing. Whether this was justified is still controversial in research. Reichenhall solved the wood supply through the saltworks convention and was thus able to secure the raw material supply of the saltworks on its own, without being restricted by the close border with Austria.

Other salt pans, on the other hand, were directly affected by local or regional wood shortages. So z. B. the lack of firewood due to the deforestation of the area as the main reason for the abandonment of the early medieval saltworks of Bad Nauheim , for the end of the Celtic saltworks at the same place, the same is assumed. Archaeological research also emphasizes that salt pans, as large consumers of wood, made a significant contribution to deforestation and prevention and thus had a decisive and often permanent impact on the landscape.

In the 19th century Palatinate, there was a lack of forest resources, but the available capacities were never exhausted. The forest administration always had less wood felled than new ones, and scarce resources due to their silvicultural order . The aim was to transform the stands into a homogeneous high forest , so their use was restricted and this was achieved through a number of power mechanisms.

Cities like Munich had a number of options for organizing the wood supply. Individual timber suppliers such as Mittenwald could only cause difficulties for the Munich company from time to time. There was often talk of a permanent crisis, but it never actually occurred.

“Holznot” in contemporary sources meant the scarcity of economic resources on the one hand, and an early idea of ​​sustainability on the other. Representatives of economic societies have repeatedly claimed that more wood is needed than regrowth. Therefore, a shortage of the important resource wood is to be feared.

In addition to the availability of chippable wood formats, the removal of leaves that was used as stable litter and dead wood in the form of twigs and branches as domestic fuel were also part of the wood shortage, because in this way considerable amounts of nutrients for further plant growth from individual parts Sections of the forest have been removed.

The argument of “wood shortage” served to establish forest science in the second half of the 18th century . Representatives of this new discipline argued that in order to prevent an impending wood shortage, an exact inventory of the wood stocks, afforestation, rational management, state supervision and scientifically trained forest officials are necessary. The wood shortage argument legitimized increasing interventions by the emerging modern central state in previously locally regulated forest uses.

Modern Pecher at work
Depiction from 1818

Replacement of easements

Similar to the economic paradigm of the alleged tragedy of the commons , which as a rule did not occur in real commons , the story of the wood shortage in the 18th and 19th centuries grew stronger against the backdrop of a deliberate conversion and abolition of the older cooperative forms of use Governmental and state-organized regulatory mechanisms take place.

Traditional forms of rural forest use, for example in the form of plenter forest management or forest hat , were denounced as short-term, exploitative and selfish; it has been said that the authorities would carefully look after the welfare of future generations. The complete transformation of the forest into a controlled place of exclusive wood production was connected with the replacement of the secondary agricultural uses, extended forestry and secondary uses (see, inter alia, Lohwald as well as Hauberg and Gehöferschaft ), which was possible without conflict with the transition to fossil fuels.

The Schönbuch near Stuttgart may be mentioned as a practical example . Around 1800 the forest area, which had existed since Celtic times, resembled a heather landscape largely covered with individual beech and oak trees. With the replacement of peasant wood, pasture and litter usage rights at the beginning of the 19th century, a systematic forest development began. The previously pure deciduous forest area was reforested with fast-growing coniferous forest . In particular, the need for industrial wood, for which there was a money market, could be better covered with softwood. The poor occasional users and their need for firewood as well as the rural forest trades were, however, displaced together with the beech trees grown for them . As early as 1830, Wilhelm Pfeil thought that the wood shortage forecast made in 1800 had been refuted, but welcomed the abolition of easements .

Background of the wood emergency debate

Historic Hutewald

In 1986, in a controversially discussed study, Joachim Radkau asserted that there was never an acute and general wood shortage and that it was not the first and last time that it was an apparent energy crisis . The local and temporally very limited supply bottlenecks would not justify the broad-based wood emergency discourse. He looked at the use of the Holznot argument to determine who used the argument politically and under what conditions. According to him, the talk of a “serious shortage of wood” could also be interpreted as a formula legitimizing power or as a strategy against competing claims by other consumers. Radkau's study particularly provoked forest historians, who located the origin of modern forestry in the successful fight against the wood shortage around 1800.

According to Frank Uekötter , Radkau’s student, Radkau denied neither the fundamental possibility of an early modern resource crisis nor the existence of a broad discussion about ways to improve wood production and use. Rather, it was primarily a matter of working out the openness of the questions and rejecting apodictic claims about the forest condition of the 18th century, a central motif being the reference to the interest-relatedness of the wood alarm. Central trades of the mercantile economy, such as salt pans and metal works, benefited from this , while the early modern states had no significant fiscal interest in forest pastures or other traditional, non-monetary uses of the forest.

The related discussion made the availability of the resource wood one of the most thoroughly researched topics in early modern environmental history. Radkau's opponent is Rolf Peter Sieferle , who, following Sombart, regards the wood shortage of the 18th century as a general crisis of a magnitude that could only be solved with a secular way out, the switch to hard coal. Hansjörg Küster drew parallels between the discussions of the 18th century about the future of wood supply and modern discussions about a sustainable global economy and the sustainability discourse in the wake of the oil crisis of the 1970s.

In comparative studies, the wood shortage was also related to other actual or alleged scarcity of resources and environmental crises such as forest dieback. According to Bernd-Stefan Grewe, in the 1980s there was a heated scientific debate about the significance of the various wood emergency complaints, as a result of which forest history and historical science converged again. Richard Hölzl argues that the wood emergency complaints of the 18th century must be interpreted against the background of the state-initiated academization and professionalization of forest use. They offered legitimation for the demand for a new centralized and scientifically justified organization of forest use and at the same time discredited older, multifunctional and locally organized ways of using.

See also

literature

  • Rolf-Jürgen Gleitsmann: Lack of raw materials and solution strategies: The problem of pre-industrial wood scarcity , in: Technologie und Politik 16 (1980), pp. 104–154.
  • Richard Hölzl: Contested Forests. The history of ecological reform in Germany, 1760-1860 . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, p. 489 ff . ( google.de ).
  • Joachim Radkau: Technology in Germany. From the 18th century until today. Frankfurt / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38689-8 .
  • Joachim Radkau: Wood shortage and crisis consciousness in the 18th century , in: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983), pp. 513-543.
  • Rolf Peter Sieferle : The underground forest . Energy crisis and industrial revolution [a publication by the Association of German Scientists (VDW)]. In: The social compatibility of energy systems . Volume 2, Beck, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-406-08466-4 (= The social compatibility of energy systems , volume 2; Beck'sche black series , volume 266).
  • Wolfram Siemann , Nils Freytag, Wolfgang Piereth (eds.): Urban wood supply. Power politics, poor welfare and environmental conflicts in Bavaria and Austria (1750-1850) , Munich: CH Beck 2002, ISBN 3-406-10663-3 (= Journal for Bavarian State History , Supplement 22).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Joachim Radkau , Technology in Germany. From the 18th century until today. Frankfurt / New York 2008, p. 74.
  2. ↑ Why was the threat to nature from humans not recognized in time? Cult of nature and fear of lack of wood around 1800.
  3. ↑ Marcus Popplow (2002): "Deforestation and Enlightenment" - 'lack of wood' in the 18th century
  4. ^ A b Elisabeth Weinberger: Forest use and forest industry in Old Bavaria in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Franz Steiner Verlag , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-515-07610-7 . (Social and Economic History: Supplements Volume 157)
  5. ^ Frank Uekötter, Environmental History in the 19th and 20th Centuries . Encyclopedia of German History , Vol. 81, (ed. V. Lothar Gall ), Munich 2007, p. 8.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Katja Hürlimann: Final report on the «Holznot» project (18th / 19th century). (PDF; 172 kB) ETH , Zurich 2004.
  7. ↑ Joachim Radkau, Technology in Germany. From the 18th century until today . Frankfurt / New York 2008, pp. 74, 84, 124f.
  8. ^ Frank Uekötter, Environmental History in the 19th and 20th Centuries . Encyclopedia of German History, Vol. 81, (ed. V. Lothar Gall ), Munich 2007, p. 53.
  9. ^ Frank Uekötter, Environmental History in the 19th and 20th Centuries . Encyclopedia of German History, Vol. 81, (edited by Lothar Gall ), Munich 2007, p. 54.
  10. ↑ FAZ.net March 17, 2011 / Joachim Müller-Jung : From the woods to the summits Always non-violent, but with quite disparate goals: the historian Joachim Radkau has presented an impressive world history of environmental movements. (Review on: Joachim Radkau: The era of ecology. )
  11. ↑ a b Deforestation and Enlightenment - Lack of Wood in the 18th Century. Report on the conference at the European Enlightenment Research Center Potsdam, 2002.
  12. ^ Daniel Speich Chassé : Review ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) To: Bernd-Stefan Grewe: The blocked forest. 2004. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tg.ethz.ch
  13. ↑ a b c Dieter Schott: Energy and City in Europe: from the pre-industrial “wood shortage” to the oil crisis of the 1970s. Contributions to the 3rd International Conference on Urban History in Budapest 1996. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-07155-5 . (Social and Economic History. Supplements, Volume 1996).
  14. ↑ Karl Otto Henselin, Origins of the Industrial Metabolism between Man and Nature (PDF; 1.8 MB). Retrieved August 10, 2012.
  15. ↑ Kotter versus v. Bülow, quoted in Schott 1996, p. 1956.
  16. ↑ L. Süß, The salt production in Bad Nauheim since the Latène time, in: B. Kull (Ed.) Sole and salt write history. 50 years of regional archeology. 150 years of archaeological research in Bad Nauheim. (Mainz 2003), 242-248, p. 248.
  17. ↑ L. Süß, The salt production in Bad Nauheim since the Latène time, in: B. Kull (Ed.) Sole and salt write history. 50 years of regional archeology. 150 years of archaeological research in Bad Nauheim. (Mainz 2003), 242-248, p. 246.
  18. ↑ Th. Saile, Salt in Prehistoric and Protohistoric Central Europe - An inventory. Ber. RGK 81, 2000 (2001), 130-197, p. 143.
  19. ↑ Bernd-Stefan Grewe: The blocked forest. Lack of resources in the Bavarian Palatinate (1814–1870). Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-412-10904-5 . (Environmental historical research, vol. 1)
  20. ^ Richard Hölzl: Contested forests. The history of ecological reform in Germany, 1760-1860 . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, p. 489 ff . ( google.de ).
  21. ↑ Bernd-Stefan Grewe, Richard Hölzl: Forestry in Germany, c1500-2000, . In: K. Jan Oosthoek, Richard Hölzl (Ed.): Managing Northern Europe's Forests: Histories from the Age of Improvement to the Age of Ecology . Berghahn Publishers, Oxford / New York 2019, p. 17-28 (15-65) ( google.de ).
  22. ↑ Stefan von Below, Stefan Breit: Forest - from the divine gift to private property: judicial conflicts between sovereigns and subjects over the forest in the early modern period. Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8282-0079-6 . (Sources and research on agricultural history, Volume 43)
  23. ↑ Peter Sieferle: Historical excursus: How tragic was the commons? ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: GAIA . 7 (1998), pp. 304-307. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alexandria.unisg.ch
  24. ↑ Bernd Marquardt: Environment and Law in Central Europe: From the great clearing of the High Middle Ages to the 21st century. Schulthess Verlag, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-7255-4615-0 . (Zurich Studies on Legal History, Volume 51)
  25. ↑ a b "Pest": History of a scientific and political construct, 1840-1920, Volume 25 of Campus historical studies, Sarah Jansen, Campus Verlag, 2003 ISBN 3593363070
  26. ↑ a b Joachim Radkau: Wood shortage and crisis awareness in the 18th century. In: History and Society. 9: 513-543 (1983).
  27. ↑ Joachim Radkau: On the alleged energy crisis of the 18th century. Revisionist considerations on the 'wood shortage'. In: Quarterly for social and economic history. 73: 1-37 (1986).
  28. ^ Frank Uekötter, Environmental History in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Encyclopedia of German History, vol. 81, (ed. V. Lothar Gall ), Munich 2007, p. 51.
  29. ↑ Bernd-Stefan Grewe: Holznotdebatte around 1800. In: And the forests die forever. The German "forest dieback" in a multidisciplinary perspective. Conference at the Freiburg Chair for Economic and Social History of the Historical Seminar, Freiburg 2007.
  30. ^ Richard Hölzl: Historicizing Sustainability. German scientific forestry in the 18th and 19th centuries . In: Science as Culture . tape 19 , no. 4 , 2010 ( academia.edu ).