Post ships on Lake Constance

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Already in the Middle Ages the people around Lake Constance entrusted written messages and valuable goods to the market ships. Since 1813, post ships officially carried sea mail and later ship mail on Lake Constance . The two post sailing ships were replaced by the faster paddle steamers that were independent of the wind after the first steamship voyage in 1824 . Although Lake Constance is an inland body of water, the mail ships were of particular importance here, because 100 years ago five countries bordered the lake, all of which participated in this postal service. The scheduled ships that regularly carried mail were called mail ships; There were no special post steamers on Lake Constance.

A picture postcard of the Wittelsbach with the ship's stamp of the post ship.

Sea mail

After the success of the first Friedrichshafen - Rorschach line in 1842, further daily "sea mail trips" to Romanshorn , Constance , Lindau , Bregenz and Schaffhausen were added between 1851 and 1856 . Under Seepost means the carriage of postal consignments dispatched by post office ships with or without an accompanying postal workers, the "Seepostkondukteur". In 1905 14 daily Seepost trips were made from Bregenz alone. The importance of the Bodensee-Seepost declined sharply after the Second World War. At the beginning of the 1970s, the last connection, the Friedrichshafen – Romanshorn ferry line , was still carrying "around 3000 parcels, 20 mail bags and about 40 mail bags with items from the GDR" to southern countries. The parcel exchange office was in the port station until 1976. Since 1995 there has been no more sea mail on Lake Constance.

Ship mail

From 1882 onwards, the Bodensee ship mail was introduced with the establishment of ship mailboxes : the ship became a post office and the paymaster or another sworn crew member was responsible for the official handling of the mail. This made it possible to post a mail item shortly before departure or as a passenger, which was franked during the crossing and canceled “by an authorized person”. He used a special on-board stamp or a landing stamp. The latter confirmed the delivery of the shipment and its immediate forwarding. If the treatment as ship mail was not possible, the nearest rural post office had to clear the shipment.

Shipments by ship were also made by the motorboats of the Austrian-German Lake Constance flotilla . The ship's mailboxes of the liners existed until May 1st, 1961 with interruptions during the war years. After that, a ship's stamp was only offered on special occasions, for example in 1963 on the last voyage from the city ​​of Überlingen .

Philatelic meaning

The shipment, often a postcard of the ship, the type of postage and the ship's and landing stamps resulted in some rarities for collectors, such as shipments that were franked with postage stamps from all five countries on Lake Constance. This mixed postage was soon banned.

Mail filing

So that smaller towns without a “steam harbor” had the opportunity to post or receive mail, they could apply for a “mail deposit”: At the specified time, a shipman appointed by the community rowed to the mail ship, which stopped briefly at a safe distance from the bank to pick up mail, sometimes passengers, to take over or to hand over. To avoid unnecessary maneuvers , a signal flag announced the need to stop. The ship did not stop in a storm.

literature

  • Werner Deppert: With a steam engine and a paddle wheel. The steamship on Lake Constance 1817-1967. Verlag Stadler, Konstanz 1975. ISBN 3-7977-0015-6 , pp. 70f.
  • Gerhard Jehle: Mail transport and mail shipping on Lake Constance. In: Immenstaader Heimatblätter, No. 7 (December 1983), publisher: Heimatverein Immenstaad e. V., pp. 59-75.

References and comments

  1. ^ Treaty between the Kingdom of Württemberg and the Swiss Canton of Zurich and the Canton of St. Gallen
  2. ↑ The two terms are not uniformly defined in the literature. The terms common on Lake Constance (after Werner Deppert, literature) are used here.
  3. ↑ Werner Deppert: With steam engine and paddle wheel (literature), p. 71. Newer data are missing.
  4. ↑ Werner Deppert: With steam engine and paddle wheel
  5. ^ Gerhard Jehle: Mail transport and mail shipping on Lake Constance