Stecknitz Canal
| Stecknitz Canal | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Specifications | |
| Length | 58 miles (93 km) (Man-made segment ran for 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi)) |
| Locks | 17 |
| Maximum height above sea level | 59 ft (18 m) |
| Status | replaced by Elbe–Lübeck Canal |
| History | |
| Date of act | 1390 |
| Date closed | 1895 |
The Stecknitz Canal was an artificial waterway in northern Germany which connected the tiny rivers Stecknitz (a tributary of the Trave) and Delvenau (a tributary of the Elbe), thus establishing a water route across the drainage divide from the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. Built between 1391 and 1398 under Eric IV of Saxe-Lauenburg, the canal was part of the Old Salt Route and is one of the earliest artificial waterways in Europe. In the 1890s the canal was replaced by an enlarged and straightened waterway called the Elbe–Lübeck Canal, which includes some of the Stecknitz Canal's watercourse.
The canal was 85 centimetres (33 in) deep and 7.5 metres (25 ft) wide; the man-made segment ran for 11.5 kilometres (7.1 mi), with a total length of 94 kilometres (58 mi) including the rivers it linked. The canal included seveteen wooden locks (of which only the Palmschleuse at Lauenburg still exists) that managed the 13-metre (43 ft) elevation difference between its endpoints and the highest central part, the Delvenaugraben.[1] According to authors David Kirby and Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen, "the journey [along the canal] often lasted up to fourteen days, due to the number of locks and the inadequacy of the towpath. A number of plans for a new Baltic–North Sea canal were floated in the 17th century, but none came to fruition."[2]
History
In the Middle Ages the trade between the North Sea and Baltic Sea grew dramatically, but the sea journey through Øresund, increasingly important to commercial shipping since the thirteenth century, was time-consuming and dangerous. Therefore, the emerging Hanseatic city of Lübeck and Eric IV, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg agreed in 1390 to cooperate in the construction of an artificial canal between the Elbe and the Baltic Sea.[3] Construction on the canal began in 1391; thirty barges carrying the first load of salt from Lüneburg reached Lübeck on 22 July 1398.
The Stecknitz Canal soon replaced the existing overland cart road as the main transport mode for Lüneburg salt on the Old Salt Route. In Lübeck the salt was stored in vast salt warehouses on the Obertrave, some of which are still standing next to the Holstentor. From there the salt was transferred to ocean-going vessels for export throughout the Baltic region. In the reverse direction the Stecknitz barges transported cereals, furs, herring, ash, timber and other goods from Lübeck, which were reloaded in Lauenburg and transported down the Elbe to Hamburg. Later coal, peat, brick, limestone and gravel were added to the cargo. The importance of the canal was greatest in years in which Øresund was closed to merchant ships because of disputes over the Sound Dues and foreign shipping.[4]
In the fifteenth century traffic peaked, with more than 3,000 shipments of more than 30,000 tons of salt moving on the canal each year. This number declined in the seventeenth century to 400 to 600 shipments (5,000 to 7,000 tons). In 1789 there were still sixty-four shipments carrying approximately 680 tons of salt. For five hundred years the canal was used to transport the "white gold," until at the end of the 19th century it was replaced by the Elbe–Lübeck Canal, which partially used the old route of the Stecknitz Canal. Today the Palmschleuse lock in Lauenburg and the Dückerschleuse lock in Witzeeze are the last remaining parts of the former canal.
Technology
The Stecknitz Canal consisted of an 11.5-kilometre (7.1 mi) artificial waterway (the Delvenaugraben) linking two minor rivers, the north-flowing Stecknitz and south-flowing Delvenau. The canal path largely followed the tortuous natural watercourses of the two rivers; as a result, the full journey from Lauenburg to Lübeck stretched to a distance of 94 kilometres (58 mi), even though the straight-line separation between the two cities is only 55 kilometres (34 mi). The man-made trench itself was about 85 centimetres (33 in) deep and 7.5 metres (25 ft) wide, though it was enlarged between 1821 and 1823 to a depth of 144 centimetres (57 in) and a width of 12 metres (39 ft).
The canal's course originally included thirteen locks, which later renovations increased to seventeen. Initially most were one-gate flash locks built into weirs (usually set below the mouth of a tributary creek), where water was dammed until a barge was ready to pass downriver. In Lauenburg the initial course included one chamber lock (the Palmschleuse) because of a watermill whose operation would have been made impossible by a flash lock. Over the course of the canal's lifetime further flash locks were progressively converted to chamber locks until the 17th century.
The canal overcame the drainage divide between the North and Baltic Seas, with a summit height of 18 metres (59 ft) above sea level. In order to supply the top portion of the canal with water, flow was diverted from Hornbeker Mühlenbach. To the north the canal descended to the Ziegelsee by the town of Mölln and then connected to the Stecknitz by a series of eight locks. The southern end of the artificial canal descended to the Delvenau through a staircase of nine locks.
The original salt barges measured roughly 12 metres (39 ft) by 2.5 metres (8.2 ft), with a 40-centimetre (16 in) draft when loaded to capacity with around 7.5 tons of salt. When traveling uphill or through chamber locks the barges had to be hauled by laborers or animals walking the towpath on the banks of the channel. By the nineteenth century newer vessel designs included rigging that eliminated the need for towing (with sufficient wind).
Barge drivers
In Lauenburg and Lübeck the barges were unloaded and their contents transferred to ships for export down the Elbe and Trave. Stecknitz barge drivers were only permitted to own one barge each, so they could not acquire great wealth in the trade; in the long run this ensured their dependence upon the Lübeck salt merchants, who were not bound by any such limitations and amassed great fortunes. The guild of the Stecknitzfahrer (Stecknitz barge drivers) still exists today in Lübeck and meets annually at the Kringelhöge to celebrate the guild's history.
Notes
- ^ Brockhaus' Konversations-Lexikon. Vol. 15 (14th ed.). Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna: F.A. Brockhaus AG. 1894. p. 278.
- ^ The Baltic and North Seas. London and New York: Routledge. 2000. p. 72.
- ^ Urkundenbuch der Stadt Lübeck IV, No. 519 and 520 (24 June 1390).
- ^ Philippe Dollinger: Die Hanse, S. 199 ff., points out that the revenue from canal tolls doubled in 1428/29 after Øresund was closed.
References
- William Boehart, Cordula Bornefeld, Christian Lopau: Die Geschichte der Stecknitz-Fahrt. 1398–1998. Viebranz, Schwarzenbek 1998, ISBN 3-921595-29-0 (Sonderveröffentlichungen des Heimatbund und Geschichtsvereins Herzogtum Lauenburg 29).
- Hermann Carl Dittmer: Über die Betheiligung Lübecks bei der Lüneburger Saline, Lübeck 1860.
- Bernhard Hagedorn: Die Entwicklung und Organisation des Salzverkehrs von Lüneburg nach Lübeck im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 17, 1915, S. 7–26.
- Walter Müller: Die Stecknitzfahrt. 3. Auflage. Goedeke, Büchen 2002, ISBN 3-9802782-0-4.
- Walter Müller, Christel Happach-Kasan: Der Elbe-Lübeck-Kanal. Die nasse Salzstraße. Mit Fotos von Hans-Jürgen Wohlfahrt. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1992, ISBN 3-529-05317-1.
- Michael Packheiser (Hrsg.): Die Zukunft liegt auf dem Wasser. 100 Jahre Elbe-Lübeck-Kanal. Steintor-Verlag, Lübeck 2000, ISBN 3-9801506-6-6 (Kataloge der Museen in Schleswig-Holstein 54).
- Gerd Stolz: Kleine Kanalgeschichte. Vom Stecknitzkanal zum Nord-Ostsee-Kanal. Herausgegeben anlässlich des 100. Jahrestages der Eröffnung des Nord-Ostsee-Kanals am 21. Juni 1895. Boyens, Heide 1995, ISBN 3-8042-0672-7 (Kleine Schleswig-Holstein-Bücher 45).
- Kai Wellbrock: Der Stecknitz-Delvenau-Kanal – Betrieb des ersten Scheitelkanals Europas mit Hilfe von Kammerschleusen?, aus Korrespondenz Wasserwirtschaft, Heft 8/12, Seiten 425–429.
- Heinz Röhl, Wolfgang Bentin: Grenzen und Grenzsteine der (freien und) Hansestadt Lübeck. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2003, ISBN 3-7950-0788-7, S 229-231