King Wilhelm (ship, 1901)
 King Wilhelm
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The steamship König Wilhelm was a ground steamship put into service in 1901 by the Royal Württemberg State Railways .
history
After King Karl and Queen Charlotte , the König Wilhelm was the third ship in a family of ships that were largely identical in structure and are known as the "royal ships". The fourth ship of this family came in 1903 as an almost identical sister ship, the King Wilhelm or the Württemberg , which, however, is not counted among the actual royal ships . The King William was on the wooden Wilhelm and the "Iron Wilhelm " the third Bodenseeschifffahrt that the name of the King of Württemberg and large conveyor of steam navigation on Lake Constance, Wilhelm I , wore.
Although Württemberg had largely given up its sovereignty since the founding of the German Empire in 1871, the railways of all three southern German states remained under their respective sovereignty. That is why the King Wilhelm sailed under the flag of the Kingdom of Württemberg and not under the flag of the Empire.
With the King Wilhelm , the old smooth-deck steamer Wilhelm from 1851 was replaced, which had been rented to the Swiss Steamboat Company since 1899 and was in service on the Untersee and the Rhine. The König Wilhelm , on the other hand, was only used on Obersee and Überlinger See, as it could not pass the Konstanz bridge over the Rhine. Your "home route" was the Friedrichshafen - Rorschach line. Before Rorschach there was the only recorded shipwreck in the 37 years of service when the King Wilhelm rammed the Swiss Rhine and was severely damaged at the bow. People were not harmed, although the port wheel arch and the kitchen were hit on the Rhine .
After the end of World War I, in 1920 the fleet of ships from the former Württemberg, Baden and Bavarian state railways was taken over by the Deutsche Reichsbahn . In contrast to Baden, Bavarian and Austrian ships with ruler's names, the Württemberg ships were allowed to keep their regent names. Only the royal coat of arms on the wheel arches had to be removed.
In 1938, a modernization of the King Wilhelm was considered, but ultimately rejected. Instead, the steamship was replaced by the Swabian , which had already been commissioned in 1937 , and retired. After two years of berth, the ship was scrapped in 1940. The ship's bell has been in the church of a Protestant parish in Friedrichshafen since 1947.
literature
- Karl F. Fritz: Adventure steamship on Lake Constance , MultiMediaVerlag, Meersburg 1989, ISBN 3-927484-00-8
- Klaus von Rudolff, Claude Jeanmaire: Shipping on Lake Constance. Volume 2. The heyday of steam shipping: Contribution to the history of Lake Constance, history of the individual ships and registers . ed. from the interest group Bodensee-Schiffahrt, Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1981. ISBN 3-85649-071-X
Web links
- King Wilhelm at Bodenseeschifffahrt.de