The fate of the Oder Schiffer
Lost and Missing - The Tragedy of a large fleet
In the current area of the Oder, directly on the shores of its 650 km long run, of Cosel to Szczecin navigable, lived about 10 million people. From leaving the cities, as this wiltered in their fire debris, report many chronicles. Only a little hear and one knows the fate of the Or Schiffer, who mostly lived in the villages. Where has she over fifty years ago Gone with the wind from the east, and what is from the barges and Become steamers that once the image upstream of the river and downstream so picturesque busy?
Only about three hundred or barges and steamers are then saved to the West.
These are but only ten per cent of all ships that navigated the stream before the war ended, with Upper Silesian coal, grain and wood mostly downhill, with Swedish
Ores mostly upstream. About the remaining nine-tenths but lowers the curtain
a tragedy, the scene of which deep enough in the East. It will probably
never be possible to describe exactly this fate. because there is no authentic
Numbers and data. Maybe it also exceeds human representation force monstrous events that took place lonely and lost, in sentences express. So much only is certain that in 1945 many hundreds of boats destroyed and from the Oder have been abducted.
About two hundred barges went on the Oder under another flag. The many other
a thousand ships will not collect any statistic that "death ships" during the
Acts of war on the Oder burned out, or the determined, for Königsberg, on
Swinoujscie drove out into the Baltic Sea, most of which capsized or were
"With all hands." No one includes the master himself on the go or in
Then died Königsberg or on the domestic routes to famine fever, unknown,
nameless.
Only the image of the Oder waterway has been preserved in colorful vibrancy, which one belonging to seIbst felt as a spectator of the Oder bridges in Opole, Wroclaw,
Glogau, Crossen, Frankfurt (Oder), Kuestrin. Quite lost one was in the sight of the
Ships. In long trailing trains they came, dumped the smoking chimney back, then disappeared under the bridge, and on the other side, where you can quickly
walked over, she reappeared and drove from heavy loads deep in water
lying it. Colorful colored shone their hulls, colorful were the flowers in
Wooden boxes bloomed throughout the summer the cabin. And while the ship woman
unconcerned hung her laundry on a leash, barked a puppy to people on
up the bridge.
Proud names had the steamer "Neptune", "Mercury" or city name "Wroclaw" "Glogau", "Ratibor", "Opole II". Behind the barges, the load carrier of the ships arrived ride; she usually wore only the names of their owners, sometimes pretty poetic any maiden name. Small and modest was their company name, for they were no major shipowners, but respected ship-owning families, long, old Gender among the sailors or the laboriously and economical to ship owners had worked up. This ship owners were mostly farmers at the same time, men driving, such as on the plow. Their goal, which they reached at last, was always to prosperity Water and on land. They loved the solid earth, the shore meadows and fields on stream, but their desire was the water that knew how to win and dominate, by Ship's boy with an empty pocket to the ship owner or even shipyard owner.
Add Datteln in the West German channel region, in Dortmund, Emden, Wesel, Hamm and
Ruhrort you hear sometimes unmistakably Silesian sounds. Many old Oder Capt'n there have to start as a simple boatman or machinist. But the Channels of the Rhine-Ruhr region are artificial rivers and heimeln the Oder Schiffer little to, especially when they are at home even been builders. Your ship of yore, their
House and village and the native-rural wealth, all these things they carry in the mind, and they know the whole series of Schiffer villages or electricity, and they know their names yet heart, the Silesian, the Brandenburg and Pomerania von Cosel port to Stettin, and they guard them like precious pearls you the shimmering band
lined looks.
Source: newspaper clipping-50years-LV-Bayern
Tow on the Oder
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