Steam Tugboat | Picture Credit: MDR/Hoferichter&Jacobs/Lutz Hofmann A documentary with the title “It's a long way to the ocean – Building Ships in Roßlau (Der weite Weg zum Meer – Schiffbau in Roßlau)” including a segment about the Rosslauer Schiffswerft was aired by MDR yesterday. The movie was made by Lutz Hofmann.
Roßlau is situated almost 300 kilometers from the ocean; nonetheless, the city in Saxony-Anhalt has an eventful maritime history going back 150 years. 3,500 ships were launched in Rosslau, approximately 1,000 of which during the time of the German Democrtic Republic (East Germany).
In 1866, the steam engine factory of the Sachsenberg brothers became the Roßlau Shipyard. These two pioneers of industrialization at the Elbe River first revolutionized steam shipping and steel shipbuilding. With their steam and chain tugboats, paddle steamers, tankers and sea-going vessels they first conquered the rivers Elbe, Saale, Rhine and Main, the Lake Constance and later the North and Baltic Seas and the oceans. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Roßlau Shipyard had developed into the biggest inland shipyard in Europe.
On their way to success, the owners experience all political struggles of their respective times first hand. They lose their business during the world economic crisis, only to buy it back five years later – and lose it again after World War II.
This is the time, when the Roßlau Shipyard really took off. As part of the Kombinat shipbuilding, it developed into the most important inland shipyard of the GDR. The people in Roßlau defy all obstacles and maneuver their ever-larger ships along 300 km off the Elbe River to the sea. Dieter Herrmann was part of the 20-head transit crew that was permitted to drive the ships through Western Germany to Hamburg. He recalls that some of the ships had to be lightened with pontoons in order not to run aground. “Sometimes, we also got in the middle of the political struggles; when we arrived in Hamburg flying the GDR-flag, we were stopped by the river police”, he says.
Source: MDR, 09 October 2018
You can find the complete Article and the movie at MDR.DE/Mediathek.
More details and pictures at MDR.DE.
