Sprat break
The Sprottebruch is the largest lowland moor in western Poland.
location
The Sprottebruch in the former Prussian province of Lower Silesia covers an area of around 6000 ha. Located between the Oder in the east and its left tributary Bober , the moor was able to form as an Ice Age reservoir in a shallow basin, fed by the tributaries of the surrounding heights. It was named after the sprat, the most important tributary that runs through the moor from east to west and flows into the Bober at Sprottau .
history
middle Ages
In the year 1015 AD the breaking of the sprat found its way into the historiography. Emperor Heinrich II. Had set out with a large army of German knights on his fourth campaign in Poland and after crossing the Oder near Krossen inflicted a heavy defeat on the Polish Duke Boleslaw Chrobry . Then he went with the main force on September 1, 1015 to march back through swampy terrain, which he was probably able to overcome by stick embankments. However, two hundred knights of the rearguard were ambushed and wiped out all but two survivors. Historians are certain that the swampy terrain was the Sprottebruch.
A Silesian line was founded by the Polish ruling family of the Piasts in 1138 with Duke Wladislaw II . Under his successor Boleslaw I of Silesia , colonization with German settlers in Silesia began around 1175. For the Sprottebruch this only meant the settlement of the higher peripheral areas. The marshland itself became even more inhospitable due to the installation of water mills, especially at the western outlet, because dammed water led to lake formation and damage to the local tree population.
18th century
During the centuries that followed, the Sprottebruch largely retained its state as a natural area. It was left to the Prussian King Friedrich II to change something here. Three wars started by him had the goal of getting Silesia under his rule. Frederick the Great went down in history as a general, but his efforts to open up his lands for agriculture have also been handed down. In 1756 he helped the potato to break through as a foodstuff in Prussia by ordinance. In the same year Prussia started the Seven Years' War, at the same time a design for the drainage of the sprat curd was made. From 1770 to 1775 work began to straighten the sprat and to build a branch canal. The decades after 1775 brought no further progress in the drainage of the sprat curd. On the contrary, after Frederick II's important mentor died in 1786, what had previously been created was neglected and floods were the rule again. Lawsuits from the shareholders were answered by the state with reports and drainage plans, the implementation of which had no lasting effect.
19th century
In the middle of the 19th century, the Sprottebruch and its surroundings moved back into the focus of history. The complicated political situation in Scandinavia meant that Duke Christian August von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (a nephew of the Danish king) was expelled from the country and generously compensated by the Danish crown for the goods left behind. The ducal family Christian Augusts went to Silesia and in 1853 acquired the rule of Primkenau , adjacent to the Sprottebruch to the south. The vigor of a new beginning and the abundant financial resources of the new rulers brought movement back into the drainage of the Sprottbruch. The Duke immediately bought the Zeisdorf mill and was able to regulate the water level at the western outlet of the sprat from the quarry. He had the south canal built, which led from east to west through his broken property. In this way, 1500 acres of arable land could be wrested from the break within ten years. The pioneering role of the ducal family made the responsible state authorities initially remain on the wait and see. Over the years, however, the efforts of the Augustenburger also produced disadvantages for neighboring landowners and showed that one had to think and work on a larger scale.
Cooperatives
Since the Primkenau rulers only owned 28% of the rupture area, the search for a comprehensive solution led to the establishment of a water cooperative in 1876, whose members owned the entire area of 6000 hectares. In detail, there were 15 estates and a further 2000 owners from 26 municipalities! Representing so many interests in a cooperative was complicated and didn't make it very effective. Numerous reports, plans and designs deal with the drainage of the quarry. About a dozen hydraulic engineering experts have dared to tackle this task over the years.
Partial successes were the lowering and ultimately the removal of the mill jam near Zeisdorf. Time and again, work has been carried out to widen and deepen the sprat and the small sprat running north. The construction of a main drainage canal in east-west direction at the deepest point of the break, which was realized in 1920 and brought the water level down by up to one meter, was also promising. After these successes, the first soil improvement cooperatives were founded at the end of the 1920s, which wanted to work on almost a third of the break area. The beginning of the transformation into agricultural land prompted the Primkenau rulers to set up a nature reserve of 625 hectares in 1929. In this way, a piece of the primeval landscape was to be preserved as a refuge for the flora and fauna.
Reich Labor Service (RAD)
The National Socialists opened the last chapter in almost two hundred years of efforts to make the sprat curd usable for agriculture. They allegedly aimed at "the freedom of food for the German people". Camps of the Reich Labor Service (RAD) were set up around the Sprottebruch from 1934 , and in 1937 eleven departments with 2,300 men were active in the Bruch. With this numerous, cheap labor, roads and paths were created, the prerequisite for large-scale amelioration. In just 18 months, the main dam Primkenau - Quaritz (Quaritz was called Oberquell from 1937), which made a road connection in north-south direction possible. In total, 36 km of paths and numerous bridges were created. The subsequent tillage began with the removal of sunken tree trunks, the position of which had to be determined by scanning with steel probes. Then steam plows and plate harrows worked the soil before hemp was cultivated as the first catch crop with great success. Within a few years, the Sprottebruch became the most important hemp-growing area in the German Empire. In the long term, however, it was planned to use the cultivated area mainly as grassland. It was so well suited for this that in 1936 four grass cuttings could be brought in. Consequently, the aim was to establish the preferred Silesian cattle breeding area in Sprottebruch.
In World War II
On August 15, 1937, the first newly founded village in the Sprottebruch with 42 farms was inaugurated and named Hierlshagen (in Polish Ostaszów, rural community Przemków ) after Konstantin Hierl . Further farming villages were planned in the east of the Bruch near Kosel (24 farms) and the west village with around 50 farms. As early as 1938, however, development stalled because two RAD departments started construction work on the Siegfried Line and before the war began in 1939, further departments were withdrawn and converted into pioneer units and construction troops. During the Second World War, most of the work had to be suspended because the RAD departments were deployed on the fronts. Stored building materials for the farming village near Kosel remained unused, cement spoiled in a manor barn. The bitter end came on January 30, 1945: while the villages south of the Bruch were already burning, the last labor service men left the Sprottebruch and took refuge from the approaching front.
Summary and outlook
If one looks over the period of 180 years (1757–1937), one can repeatedly identify obstacles that questioned the various efforts. First there were timid, inadequate plans for drainage, then the withdrawal of plans due to lack of funds. Disagreements among the numerous owners and natural disasters that led to floods also brought setbacks. Ultimately, wars prevented ambitious plans from being accomplished.
In a time of worldwide exchange of goods, it is no longer absolutely necessary to use moors for agriculture. Profitability calculations also speak against it. The number of nature conservationists is increasing with their demand to preserve existing moors as natural monuments that have grown over centuries and to rewet former moors.
literature
- Thietmar von Merseburg: Chronicle 1009-1018
- Dr. Ing.Helmrich: The drainage of the Sprottebruch (Sprottauer Jahrbuch 1930, page 61–83)
- Dr. Richard Nitschke: Cultural work in the Sprottebruch (Schlesische Heimat 4th issue 1937, pages 193–197)
- Comradeship letters from the former Arbeitsgaus X, Lower Silesia (1952–1975, edited by Erich Halbscheffel)
- Dr. Felix Matuszkiewicz: From Primkenau's past (Our Sagan-Sprottauer Heimat, Cologne-Rodenkirchen 1956, pages 17-21)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dr. Richard Nitschke: Cultural work in the Sprottebruch (Schlesische Heimat 4th issue 1937, page 193)