Inland Waterways of Germany

Abstract

SINCE the State took over the control of the German inland waterways in 1921, much attention has been given to their improvement; schemes which had been projected for years have recently been completed, and others are in course of realization. This activity is an acceleration of a policy which has been pursued with a varying degree of intensity since the foundation of the first empire in 1871. Transport of goods by river however had played an important r61e in German economy long before that date. During the Middle Ages the rivers were the most efficient medium for the exchange of goods. Germany, particularly in the north and east, is well provided with rivers which offered few difficulties to navigation by the craft of that period, From an early date the facility with which this natural system of routes could be improved by the building of canals was recognized, and small schemes were carried out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The industrial revolution and the development of the railway system rendered the unimproved waterways largely obsolete, and it was not until the close of the last century that serious efforts were made to evolve a system adequate to the demands of modern industry. The hydrographical network however possesses one great disadvantage from the point of view of a unified transport system: its general direction is from south-east to north-west, and the rivers flow on roughly parallel courses. There is therefore no natural focus of waterways, such as contributed to the growth of the French state in the Paris basin, and no continuous water route from east to west. Moreover the Oder debouches into the Baltic, and the Elbe and Weser into the North Sea, while the marginal position of the Rhine prevented its passing under complete German control, and its estuaries lie outside German territory. In addition therefore to the major conflict evident throughout German history between expansion north-westwards down the rivers to the sea, and expansion south-eastwards down the Danube, there was the divergent attraction of the Baltic. These centrifugal forces, which contributed to political particularism, had also an economic aspect, and until national unity was fashioned little advance towards a common economic policy was possible, and even less to a unified system of inland water transport. To-day it is the policy of the administration to resolve these conflicting trends, to unify the system, and to extend its sphere of influence. To understand the work at present in progress and the plans for the future, a short sketch of the German inland waterways may be useful. The following notes are based in part on recent articles in German periodicals.1 The foundations of the network are the navigable rivers. Owing to the