Wrinkle Cooperative
Runzgenossenschaften are cooperatives in Freiburg im Breisgau that operate artificially created watercourses ( Runzen ) for common economic use (e.g. irrigation, mills, energy). This distinguishes them from drinking water cooperatives such as B. the Röhrwassergewerkschaft in Lutherstadt Wittenberg , the so-called since the 16th century. Delivers “maiden tube water” from a contained spring area in the city's drinking water wells.
The Alemannic word "Runz" comes from "rinnen" and is used for a watercourse created by humans.
The cooperatives guaranteed and controlled the amount of water, the water distribution, the discharge and passage of the water diverted from a natural river. A fair distribution of the water, which was not unlimited, was of considerable importance for the medieval city economy.
The Runzmeister appointed by the Runners is responsible for the Runners belonging to the Cooperative. He employs a runner who has to check, clean and maintain the system every day and, if necessary, operate the weirs. The comrades and users pay a water rate for this.
history
For the first time in Freiburg, agreements to regulate meadow irrigation were made in the 13th century between monasteries whose possessions on watercourses collided. “Runzgenossenschaften” in the real sense - that is, with rules and structured will-formation - we only find at the end of the 15th century.
There were five such cooperatives in Freiburg for the commercial use of the water, but there were also numerous meadows for irrigation of agricultural areas. Many trades used the water: grain and oil millers, tanners, dyers, fishermen, butchers, glassblowers, brewers and bathers. Fishermen used the water for cooling. Some uses were mutually exclusive. It was forbidden to discharge sewage from tanners and dyers while the meadow was being watered. There were precisely defined slaughter days for the slaughterhouse and the butchers.
Later, hydropower also became important for gunsmiths, hammers, blacksmiths and nails, file cutters and saw filers, for garnet and gemstone grinders, for wood turners, paper millers and book printers as well as for silk, glue and fertilizer production.
The Runzen were not without significance for the settlement of large factories in the 19th century . Water was used more and more industrially. Users were the paper and textile industry, wood and metal processing and food production. With the electrification and the installation of turbines , there was an additional new application for inner-city watercourses.
At the beginning of the 21st century, these watercourses still serve as suppliers of fire fighting water and irrigation water for allotment gardens, as receiving waters for rainwater and protection against flooding and for industrial cooling. In addition, they are increasingly being used again to generate electricity in reactivated or newly installed small power plants. Therefore, the tasks of the cooperative are not yet dispensable, and so there are still three such cooperatives in Freiburg today, one of which (“Obere Runz der Werkbesitzer”) still works in the original sense.
literature
- Iso Himmelsbach: Stream tee - Of streams and canals in Freiburg / Breisgau. Freiburg im Breisgau 2005, ISBN 3-00-017055-3 .
