Nesserlander Höft
The Nesserlander Höft was a 4.5 kilometer long sheet pile wall made of oak logs in the area of the Dollart . The building represents the ultimately unsuccessful attempt by the city of Emden to force the Ems back into its old river bed directly along the city ramparts and thus ensure that the Emden harbor is adequately flushed.
background
As a result of the dollar slump, the Ems loop before Emden was cut off in 1509. While the Ems previously flowed directly under the ramparts of the city of Emden, after the storm surge the river bed shifted into the newly created tendon of this arch. As a result, the Nesserland peninsula opposite Emden became an island, and the arc, now abandoned by the main current, silted up more and more, making access to Emden harbor increasingly difficult.
The Nesserlander Höft
In 1583, after long deliberations, the city council and the city council decided to build the sheet pile wall, which began in the same year. The Nesserlander Höft was created between the southeastern tip of the island of Nesserland and the opposite Pogum , the northernmost point of the Rheiderland . It consisted of oak trunks rammed deep into the ground, which were connected at their upper ends on both sides with oak stakes and heavy iron bolts. Piles hewn diagonally a good meter apart gave the structure additional stability. To protect against undercutting, a lot of brick rubble was piled up on the side facing the river.
Due to political turmoil, the completion of the building dragged on until 1616. The construction and maintenance of the Nesserlander Höft consumed enormous sums of money. By 1628 the city of Emden had to raise a total of 616,000 guilders . The city could not cope with this in the long run and finally abandoned the building in 1631.
consequences
The old loop of the Ems slowly silted up and the river would flow past the city about three kilometers away. By centering almost all of the inner-East Frisian drainage on Emden, the fairway of the Emden harbor was flushed through at every ebb and thus cleared of silt, so that until well into the 18th century a water depth was ensured that was sufficient for seafaring at that time. The breakthrough at Nesserland and finally the abandonment of the Nesserlander Höft seem to have been important for the silting up of the dollar. This changed the current in the bay and the onset of silting progressed rapidly, so that large stretches of the foreland could be re-watered as early as the first half of the 16th century.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bernd Kappelhoff: History of the city of Emden from 1611 to 1749. Emden as a quasi-autonomous city republic. (Volume XI of the series "Ostfriesland in the protection of the dike", published by Deichacht Krummhörn, Pewsum). Verlag Rautenberg, Leer 1994, without ISBN, p. 357
- ^ Coastal Committee North and Baltic Sea: The Coast; Archives for research and technology on the North and Baltic Seas , Volume 19–21, 1970, p. 35