Small bellows
The Kleine Balge was a watercourse in the area of Bremen's old town, which separated the Stephaniviertel , which was later walled off, from the rest of the city. It drained a still water known as the Schwanengatt and after only a few hundred meters it flowed into the Weser on the right-hand side . The last city map entry is in 1829.
In contrast to the Großer Balge - which, as the right branch of the Weser, represented the first port of Bremen a little upstream - the Kleiner Balge never had any particular economic importance. It only gained strategic relevance when it was integrated into the moat in front of the first city wall as its western section in the 11th century . The Schwanengatt experienced a significant reduction in size and for a long time formed a tactically weak point in the fortifications. From 1307 the Stephaniviertel was also walled, but initially only on the land side. That is why the old wall and its moat were maintained until the 16th century. In the 16th century, the (outer) wall of the Stephanitor was extended upstream along the banks of the Weser, and the wall sections facing away from the Weser were reinforced by an upstream wall due to the increasing penetration of guns.
Now the old wall within the city was a disadvantage as a traffic obstacle even in the case of defense. That is why it was broken off from 1551. At the same time, the Kleine Belge was dammed up from the Natel to the Schwanengatt. Sometimes it was also filled in at some point. In the first really exact map of Bremen's old and new town, measured by Carl Ludwig Murtfeldt in 1796 and printed by Georg Heinrich Tischbein , the Kleine Balje begins on Öhlmühlenstrasse opposite Grosse Rosen Strasse, flowing briefly to the east and then to the south. From the Natel (only street name) to the outflow into the Weser at the western corner of the New Kornhaus , it was built over in 1796 with the street Fangturm .
The Schwanengatt was sealed up in 1547, which made it possible to strengthen the fortifications in this area. Today, a very short street of the same name in Bremen's old town bears the name Schwanengatt, which connects Jakobistraße and Abbentorstraße and leads across an inner courtyard. Before the Second World War, it was a little longer by connecting further east to Jacobistraße. In the plans of the 18th century it was called Schwanenstrasse. The body of water may have extended to the south of this road, but mostly further to the northeast.
literature
- Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . Edition Temmen , Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
- Karin Bubke: The Bremen city wall . Self-published by the Bremen State Archives 2007, ISBN 978-3-925729-48-5
swell
- ↑ by Lieutenant Bornemann, available in the Bremen State Archives
- ^ Koster-Chronik , Vol. 2, p. 195: "Anno 1551 word togediket de grave, van der Nateln beth tom Swanegate"
- ↑ Renner Chronicle, Vol. 2, p. 124, March 27, 1547: "Ock wort dat Swanegatt tho gediket"
- ↑ Karin Bubke: Die Bremer Stadtmauer , p. 294, fig. 132