Rhine-Maas Canal
The Rhine-Maas Canal was one of the numerous projects to connect the Rhine and the Maas with a navigable canal . In contrast to the North Canal , construction work was never started on the Rhine-Maas Canal planned further south.
Above all, the - meanwhile closed - mines and the iron and steel industry of the Aachen district still have no connection to the European inland waterway network. This was a decisive disadvantage of the location, especially compared to the Ruhr area , which at the end of the 19th century led to the migration of the industrial families Thyssen and Hoesch from the Aachen district and there especially from the Eschweiler-Stolberg area . Whether the coal and steel industry would still exist there today with a sewer connection is a purely hypothetical question.
In the course of time there were different variants for the course of the canal, which were determined by different political and economic interests. In addition, there were the geographical conditions: the further north the canal would have been laid out, the smaller the height differences to be overcome and the shorter the canal as a whole would have been. On the other hand, it would be further and further removed from the regions to be developed.
Plans before 1900
The first modern plans to build a canal between the Rhine and the Meuse already existed at the time of Napoleon . The construction of the so-called North Canal was even started, but never completed.
Serious considerations were made around 1860, since at that time the railroad was not expected to provide such great transport services as could be achieved with barges pulled by steamers. Above all, the aim was to connect the industrial and mining regions around Liège , Maastricht and Aachen with the catchment area of the Rhine as short as possible . A connection between the North Sea port of Antwerp and the Rhine was also an important aspect.
After the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, renewed suggestions for construction came, some on the German and some on the Belgian side from bourgeois circles and industrialists.
Plans around 1910
Around 1910 there were several planned routes:
Variants near Krefeld and Mönchengladbach
The northernmost variant was the Venlo - Kempen - Krefeld route , which was favored above all by those interested in the Lower Rhine and Prussians and could have been particularly important for Krefeld, Viersen and Mönchengladbach. However, this plan would have made little economic sense.
After further planning, the canal should have started in the west at Roermond , should then lead north past Mönchengladbach to reach the Rhine at Neuss .
Both of these variants would have been a long way from the worm area , which most urgently needed a sewer connection.
Variant near Aachen
Another variant envisaged the western beginning in Antwerp. The canal should lead past Genk , cross the Meuse at Elsloo , go south past Jülich and Kerpen and reach the Rhine at Wesseling south of Cologne . The Albert Canal , which connects Liège and Antwerp today , was built two decades later, but runs between Antwerp and Genk on the route previously considered.
The Aachen coal field was to be opened up by a branch channel along the Wurm river between Geilenkirchen and Herzogenrath , which was to branch off at Übach-Palenberg . This branch canal should initially be led to the outskirts of Aachen, but this was soon recognized as too difficult and too expensive. A second branch canal was planned further east and should lead with two branches to Eschweiler and Düren .
According to plans by the Belgian government from the 1950s, the Rhine-Maas Canal should have started north of Liège at the Albert Canal and ran in an easterly direction. In German territory it would have run north of Aachen past Broichweiden , Dürwiß and Jülich and Grimlinghausen to flow into the Rhine at Neuss.
Plans after 1920
In fact, it was from 1920 to 1944 always new plans to realize the water connection of the Aachen area, which almost always went out during this period as well as after the war on the part of the channel association, whose long-time chair of the mayor , Chamber of Commerce President and industrialists Hermann Heusch was and which included many industrialists as well as citizens from Aachen and the surrounding area. In the interwar period, despite the most adverse circumstances, the start of the canal construction actually came closer than ever before, but both the Prussian government and the Reichsbahn and the powerful industrialists on the Rhine and Ruhr as well as individual military personnel finally came to the planning stop on the part of the National Socialists in advance of the Second World War .
Archives
Ultimately, none of the plans ever came to fruition. Many plans, related documents and other documents on the sewer projects are in the archives of the city of Aachen, the main state archive in Düsseldorf , the Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsarchiv in Cologne and in the archive of the IHK Aachen .