A new port and city are built in just three years...!


At the beginning of the 19th century, the Hanseatic city of Bremen slowly but surely got into trouble!



The Weser is visibly silting up due to sand and silt deposits due to the tidal range, the narrow fairway is becoming ever flatter...:



This means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for larger ships to call at the port of Bremen, which is located 80 kilometers inland from the mouth of the Weser.



And Bremen lives from maritime trade!



But the people of Bremen know how to help themselves!

In 1827, Mayor Johann Smidt...



... buys from the Kingdom of Hanover and the foreland of the dyke of the former Swedish fortified city of Carlsburg on the north side of the confluence of the Geeste and the Outer Weser...:



The fortress that was never completely built...



...was under Swedish Field Marshal Carl Gustav Wrangel...



... begun in 1672...



... was besieged in 1676 by an alliance of troops from Lüneburg, Münster, Verden and Bremen...



... finally had to capitulate and was then made thoroughly uninhabitable by the victors!

Since then, the ruins on the Weser had stood around uselessly.

The site was handed over to the people of Bremen after receipt of the purchase price of 73,658 talers, 17 groschen and 1 pfennig on May 1, 1827 and was named "Bremerhaven".

The people of Bremen immediately set about building a new port - three years later it is complete - including two new locks! And next to it a new city has arisen! The outline of the demolished fortress is drawn on the next map...:







On September 12, 1830, the first ship entered the new port - it was the American full-rigged ship "Draper" from Baltimore under the command of Captain Hillert...!





Almost three years for the demolition of an old fortress ruin and the new construction of a port and a city! Today they don't even manage to repair a dilapidated quay wall in the same time!