Neckar-Danube Canal

The Neckar-Danube Canal was a planned major shipping route . Since the Swabian Alb used to be difficult to cross with loads and the roads were poorly built, they wanted to build a continuous shipping route from the Neckar to the Danube . The canal should lead from the Rems , the Kocher and the Brenz to the Danube.

history

First canal plans in 1784

The Italian Giacomo Bernando had the first idea for a large shipping route in 1784. He wanted to get a state job at the Stuttgart court as the main planner of the project, but he did not succeed because the project was rejected. It was expensive and difficult to implement.

Resumption of the canal plans in the 19th century

In 1802 the two Württemberg state technicians Karl August Friedrich von Duttenhofer and Carl Christian von Seeger made the first plans. These were never implemented because it was feared that the water supply in the rivers could become scarce due to the canal supply and the ironworks next to the rivers could be affected.

In 1807, the ironworks clerk Friedrich Bleibel campaigned for the canal, but was ignored by the government. The son of Colonel von Duttenhofer made further attempts at sewer planning in 1824. The first attempt was unsuccessful, the second was declared impossible by himself.

In 1830 King Wilhelm I commissioned a commission to plan a railway line instead of the canal. This was completed in 1851, it led through the Filstal . Since many people were still in favor of the implementation of the Neckar-Danube Canal, the building councilor Sprenger submitted proposals to the senior building council in 1865 to regulate the Neckar and to build a canal via Heidenheim to the Danube, which was rejected.

Renewed resumption of the canal plans towards the end of the 19th century

The project was then forgotten for several years, but received a new boost in 1897 when the “Comité for the Elevation of Neckar Shipping” was founded. In 1901 the Württemberg government held talks about the construction of a canal for the first time and in 1907 the government master builder Eberhardt was commissioned to develop plans. In these it was stated that the canal should become a 113 km long large shipping route and lead through the valleys of the Rems, Kochers and Brenz. He calculated the costs at 112 million marks. In Schorndorf , Schwabisch Gmund , Aalen and Heidenheim should inland ports created. The route in the area of Heidenheim was planned precisely. The canal should lead in the natural Brenzbett from Oberkochen via Königsbronn , Itzelberg , Aufhausen and Schnaitheim to the center of Heidenheim. At the train station, the canal was to leave the Brenz and artificially run through Mergelstetten and Bolheim and then back into the Brenz in Herbrechtingen . The Württemberg government considered the plan to be absurd, and the excessive costs ultimately brought the project to failure and the committee collapsed.

Resumption of the canal plans in the 20th century

Furthermore, the idea of a canal over the Swabian Alb was retained and in December 1916 the "Südwestdeutsche Kanalverein" was founded with the aim of implementing the Neckar-Danube Canal with many representatives, for example with the Voith company. The routing of the canal was revised again and it was planned to lead the canal through the Filstal to Geislingen and on to Ulm .

In 1921 engineers delivered plans for a canal from Plochingen via Geislingen to Ulm, the Stuttgart authorities paid no heed to these plans for financial reasons. Nevertheless, the Neckar-Danube State Treaty was concluded that same year, which established three waterways:

Mannheim - Plochingen (Neckar, see also Neckar Canal )
Plochingen - Geislingen (Fils)
Geislingen - Ulm (overland route)

The first section from Mannheim to Heilbronn was inaugurated as early as 1935 (see Heilbronn harbor ). The construction was managed by Otto Konz as electricity construction director. In the time of National Socialism , the government paid no more attention to the project because all the resources were needed for road construction.

Final planning and the end of the project

The idea of the canal stayed in the minds of the people in Filstal. That is why the new chairman of the “Southwest German Canal Association” designed the “South German Mittelland Canal”. In the years from 1938 to 1940 Otto Konz planned the route of the "South German Mittelland Canal". It was supposed to lead from Bad Überkingen to Ulm through a 25 km long tunnel with two ship lifts . All this planning was useless. On May 11, 1938, a law announced that a canal to connect the Main and the Danube should be built instead. Construction was interrupted for a while during the Second World War. The Main-Danube Canal was finally completed in 1992 .

Problems with the implementation of the Neckar-Danube Canal

Because the canal should run right through the center of many cities, houses would have had to be torn down or the cities had to be extensively rebuilt. This can be seen very clearly in the example of Heidenheim. An extensive renovation of some parts of the city and the demolition of numerous houses would have been inevitable. The city's largest employer, the “Württembergische Cottun-Manufaktur” (WCM) would have been forced to move. Another problem that repeatedly prevented the implementation of the plans was overcoming the height. The plan was to build the canal across the Swabian Alb, which is around 300 meters in altitude that the ship would have had to overcome. In the first plan from 1784, 140 locks were planned over a distance of 115 km, which would have meant lifting works at intervals of 800 m. This circumstance prevented the construction of the Neckar-Danube Canal for financial reasons.

literature

Wolf-Ingo Seidelmann: The South German Mittelland Canal did not come to Heidenheim , yearbook 1991/92, Heimat- und Altertumsverein Heidenheim an der Brenz eV, 1992, publisher: Helmut Weimert.