Pfinz-Saalbach correction

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Aqueduct of the Saalbach over the Saalbach Canal near Karlsdorf

The Pfinz-Saalbach correction ( Pfisako for short ) was a hydraulic engineering measure carried out between 1934 and 1962 in the right bank of the Upper Rhine Plain between the cities of Karlsruhe and Philippsburg . The aim of the measure was to improve flood protection in the area of ​​the Pfinz and Saalbach rivers and to expand the arable land.

Natural space

The Upper Rhine Plain can be divided into three natural areas in the Pfinz-Saalbach Correction area :

  • In the west lies the Rhine lowlands . Significant parts of the valley was until the straightening of the Rhine in 1817 under Johann Gottfried Tulla from in meanders running Rhine and its old Rhine arms taken.
  • In the center closes - the Rhine valley delimited by an approximately seven meters high off-road ratio - the lower terrace, also Hardt levels or Hardt plates called on. It consists mainly of gravel and sand; large parts are covered by the Hardtwald . The groundwater level is comparatively low; Waters are rare. As a flood-proof area, the lower terrace was preferably used to build settlements.
  • In the east, at the transition to the Kraichgau, there is a rim depression known as the Kinzig-Murg-Rinne , which is slightly lower than the lower terrace. Rivers and streams coming from the Kraichgau formed alluvial cones when they entered the Upper Rhine Plain , which often took up settlements. Large parts of the rim depression were swampy or were occupied by moors such as the Weingartener Moor . In spring or during floods, a shallow lake often formed in the rim depression. The waters from the Kraichgau turn north in the rim depression, break through the lower terrace and flow into the Rhine.

prehistory

The Heglach in high altitude near Blankenloch .

Hydraulic engineering measures in the area of ​​the rim depression can be traced back to the Middle Ages: Based on the settlement history of the city of Bruchsal , it is assumed that after the year 1000, the swamps in the vicinity of the settlement core were started to dry out by digging ditches to prevent flooding. A certificate from Speyr Bishop Raban von Helmstatt from 1396 proves the "brook cleaning": The high sediment load of the brooks of the rim depression , in particular loess from the Kraichgau, was dug out of the brook bed and deposited at the brook edge, so that in a slowly running, hardly planned Process high-lying, dammed streams were created.

With the high-lying brooks, there was the possibility of a regulated watering of the meadow . Of special importance was the Trübwässerung where lime and minerals containing headed water on lawns, thereby increasing the area and acidic soils buffered could be. The meadow irrigation and the drainage of further, lower lying areas led to the creation of drainage ditches. Other trenches served to balance areas with excess water and areas with water shortage. A ditch supplied the city of Philippsburg with water; it also served to flood the area around the fortress Philippsburg . Over the centuries, a complex system of trenches emerged, especially in the peripheral depression, many of which had multiple functions. Characteristic were the high-lying, dammed brooks, next to which - often parallel and on both sides - deep drainage ditches ran.

Plans to channel the water from the rim depression, especially that of the Pfinz, through the Hardtwald directly into the Rhine, date back to the 19th century. These plans were taken up again and again in the following decades. Detailed planning began in 1914, the realization of which was prevented by the First World War and later by financial problems.

activities

Main waters of the Pfinz-Saalbach correction.

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists, a law for the Pfinz-Saalbach correction was passed in October 1934 by the state of Baden , which regulated land acquisition , expropriations and financing , among other things . Baden assumed two thirds of the costs and the affected communities one third. The division of costs among the communities led to protracted conflicts that lasted until the 1975 final bill. According to the final law on the Pfinz-Saalbach correction of April 1975, the municipalities have to assume a quarter of the costs of water maintenance.

The aim of the water body correction was to eliminate the risk of flooding and to lower the groundwater level in the Rhine lowlands, which rose due to, among other things, pressurized water from the Rhine. In addition, 3,200 hectares of land were to be made usable for agriculture and the yield increased by 30% to around 10,800 hectares. The cross-sections of the canals and main drainage ditches were designed so that they could also be used militarily as anti-tank trenches .

The construction work for the Pfinz-Saalbach correction began on November 16, 1934 with the groundbreaking ceremony by the NSDAP Gauleiter and Reich Governor for Baden, Robert Wagner . Over 3000 members of the Reich Labor Service were called in for the work and were housed in militarily organized barrack camps in various communities in the correctional area. Machines were only used to a limited extent. Land consolidation procedures and construction measures were coordinated with the construction of the Reichsautobahn from Heidelberg to Karlsruhe (today's Federal Motorway 5 ); Excavations from the canal construction were used to build dams on the motorway. There were numerous complaints from the farmers, which the National Socialist regime tried to counter by introducing “wish days”.

The construction work initially concentrated on the construction of the Pfinz relief canal and the Saalbach canal . Both canals were supposed to serve as flood discharge and led from the entry of the waters into the Upper Rhine Plain on the most direct route possible through the Hardtplatte to the west to the Rhine. To the north of the Pfinz relief canal, a flood retention basin was created in the Füllbruch forest area that can hold two million cubic meters of water. The Pfinz relief canal was operational in 1936; the Saalbach Canal was completed around 1938. In the following years the construction progress slowed down because - due to the armament of the Wehrmacht - fewer workers and building materials were allocated. During World War II, a significant number of been prisoners of war used in the work.

Culvert of the Rhine Low Canal under the Saalbach Canal

Other measures included the construction of two drainage canals running in a north-south direction: The Rhine Low Canal connected previously independent drainage systems in the Rhine Low between Neureut and Philippsburg. Additional areas were diked on the Rhine. In the rim depression, the Pfinz correction was created as a receiving water of several small bodies of water from the Kraichgau. From Neuthard a canal was built that can transfer water from the Pfinz correction to the Saalbach Canal. Saalbach and Pfinz were straightened and partly lowered.

After the end of the war, work was resumed in 1948 after the currency reform . Between 1948 and 1950 the Pfinz was relocated to Grötzingen . A flood in 1955 caused the previously planned extension of the Rhine Lower Canal to the Wagbach estuary near Altlußheim to be abandoned. Instead, a pumping station was built in the old branch of the Rhine near Philippsburg , which pumps water from the Lower Rhine Canal into the Rhine when the Rhine floods.

With the completion of the Philippsburg pumping station in 1962, the Pfinz-Saalbach correction was ended. According to the Karlsruhe Water Management Office , between 1934 and 1962, 36.9 kilometers of canals and 52 kilometers of ditches were laid in the 325 square kilometer correction area, 25.5 kilometers of protective dams were built and existing watercourses expanded over 30 kilometers. 97 bridges and 60 weirs were built . The costs in the period from 1934 to 1948 were just under 14.4 million RM ; from 1948 to 1962 DM 10.8 million was spent. 2.4 million DM of this went to the pumping station in Philippsburg. Originally, the total cost was assumed to be RM 13.3 million.

consequences

Weir of the Pfinz relief canal in the Hardtwald at the junction of the Hirsch Canal .

Since the Pfinz-Saalbach correction, flooding has largely not occurred in the correction area. At the end of the 1960s it was stated that the facilities built had proven themselves in numerous flood events. The water table generally fell by one to two meters. Many trenches no longer carry water. Wells on farms sometimes ran dry; New wells were drilled in the municipality of Spöck to ensure the supply of extinguishing water. In Karlsdorf 170 wells dried up in 1937. As a result of the lowering of the groundwater, some fruit trees and oaks died in the Hardt Forest. The death of probably 800-year-old oaks at Stutensee Castle , which are listed as natural monuments , is attributed, among other things, to the lowering of the groundwater. Culture weirs were built in the Pfinz relief canal to prevent further lowering of the groundwater. In 1995, Baden-Württemberg's Environment Minister Harald B. Schäfer spoke of a severe lack of water in the forests on the Hardtplatte and pointed to the disappearance of numerous animal species as a result of the correction.

Meadow irrigation facilities were retained in the Pfinz-Saalbach correction and were partly used until 1972. In the 1990s, parts of the existing meadow irrigation facilities in the city of Stutensee were reactivated in order to be able to use them as retention areas during floods. A brook and ditch concept was developed for the district of Karlsruhe , aiming at a return to the “historically grown, natural area-typical brook systems and water meadows, taking into account all the concerns of the communities, water management, nature conservation and agriculture”. Among other things, a biotope network system should be created and the formation of new groundwater should be promoted.

literature

  • Günther Malisius: Die Pfinz: Once a lifeline, now local recreation and always corrected . (= Contributions to the history of Durlach and the Pfinzgau , Volume 5). Freundeskreis Pfinzgaumuseum, Historical Association Durlach eV (Ed.). Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 2011, ISBN 978-3-89735-681-8 .
  • Dieter Hassler (Ed.): Wässerwiesen: History, technology and ecology of the irrigated meadows, streams and ditches in Kraichgau, Hardt and Bruhrain. Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 1995, ISBN 3-929366-20-7 .
  • Gismar Eck: Pfinz-Saalbach correction. In: Ministry of the Interior of Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): Water management in Baden-Württemberg. Water supply, sewage disposal, river engineering, dam construction, agricultural hydraulic engineering, administration, organization. Verwaltungs-Verlag, Munich 1969, pp. 153–156.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kurt Metzger: The cultural landscapes of the Kraichgau and the Upper Rhine Plain: A natural-spatial-agrographic representation. In: Hassler, Wässerwiesen , pp. 9-18.
  2. ↑ Dieter Hassler: A thousand years of effort and no end. The history of brook construction in Kraichgau, Hardt and Bruhrain. In: Hassler, Wässerwiesen , pp. 40–61, here p. 40.
  3. ↑ Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 42f.
  4. ^ Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 46.
  5. ↑ Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 53.
  6. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 80; Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 58.
  7. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 81f. See also Baden law on water protection measures in the Rhine plain between Karlsruhe and Wagbach (Pfinz-Saalbach correction) (accessed on March 16, 2012).
  8. ↑ Hans Schaal, Fritz Bürkle : From hydraulic and cultural engineering to water management in Baden-Württemberg. 200 years of water management in southwest Germany. State Institute for Environmental Protection, Karlsruhe 1993, ISBN 3-88251-197-4 , p. 47.
  9. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 80.
  10. ↑ Schaal, Wasser- und Kulturbau , p. 44.
  11. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 81ff.
  12. ^ Eck, Pfinz-Saalbach-Korrektion , p. 155.
  13. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , pp. 84f.
  14. ^ Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 57.
  15. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , pp. 81, 85; Eck, Pfinz-Saalbach correction , p. 154.
  16. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , pp. 85, 88.
  17. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , pp. 82, 88.
  18. ↑ a b Eck, Pfinz-Saalbach-Korrektion , p. 156.
  19. ^ Bernhard Brenner: Karlsdorfer Heimatbuch. Published by the municipality of Karlsdorf-Neuthard, Geiger, Horb am Neckar 1987, ISBN 3-89264-169-2 , p. 169.
  20. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 86; Hassler, A Thousand Years of Trouble , p. 59f.
  21. ↑ Malisius, Pfinz , p. 108.
  22. ↑ Harald B. Schäfer: Foreword . In: Hassler, Wässerwiesen , p. 3.
  23. ↑ Reiner Dick, August Nagel: Ecological flood protection in Stutensee . In: Hassler, Wässerwiesen , pp. 377–379.
  24. ^ Alexander Zink: The brook and ditch concept in the district of Karlsruhe . In: Hassler, Wässerwiesen , pp. 358-360, quotation p. 358.

Coordinates: 49 ° 7 '  N , 8 ° 28'  E