History
The first connection between the North and Baltic Seas was constructed while the area was ruled by Denmark-Norway. It was called the Eider Canal, which used stretches of the Eider River for the link between the two seas. The Eiderkanal was completed during the reign of Christian VII of Denmark in 1784 and was a 43-kilometre (27 mi) part of a 175-kilometre (109 mi) long waterway from Kiel to the Eider River's mouth at Tönning on the west coast. It was only 29 metres (95 ft) wide with a depth of three metres (ten feet), which limited the vessels that could use the canal to 300 tonnes displacement.
During the 19th century, after Schleswig-Holstein had come under the government of Prussia (from 1871 the German Empire) following the Second Schleswig War in 1864, a combination of naval interests — the German navy wanted to link its bases in the Baltic and the North Sea without the need to sail around Denmark — and commercial pressure encouraged the development of a new canal.
In June 1887, construction works started at Holtenau, near Kiel. The canal took over 9,000 workers eight years to build. On June 20, 1895, the canal was officially opened by Kaiser Wilhelm II for transiting from Brunsbüttel to Holtenau. The next day, a ceremony was held in Holtenau where Wilhelm II named it the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal (after Kaiser Wilhelm I), and laid the final stone. The opening of the canal was filmed by British director Birt Acres and surviving footage of this early film is preserved in the Science Museum in London.
In order to meet the increasing traffic and the demands of the Imperial German Navy, between 1907 and 1914 the canal width was increased. The widening of the canal allowed the passage of a Dreadnought-sized battleship. This meant that these battleships could travel from the Baltic Sea to the North Sea without having to go around Denmark. The enlargement projects were completed by the installation of two larger canal locks in Brunsbüttel and Holtenau.
After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles internationalised the canal while leaving it under German administration. The government under Adolf Hitler repudiated its international status in 1936. After World War II the canal was reopened to all traffic.
Read more about this topic: Kiel Canal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)