GERSWEILER BRIDGE and inland barges ANNA LEONIE and SYLVIA

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aukepalmhof
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GERSWEILER BRIDGE and inland barges ANNA LEONIE and SYLVIA

Post by aukepalmhof » Wed May 06, 2020 9:51 pm

I did find a German internet site that gives more on the three stamps issued by Saar which shows us in World War II destroyed Gersweiler bridge. Two vessels moored under the new pedestrian built bridge of Gersweiler constructed after the war which shows us two inland barges. She were the ANNA LEONIE and SYLVIA. Of the SYLVIA I could not find more info, what is given below is on the ANNA LEONIE.

On the Saar were getreidelte (towboats) as Penichen referred. Until 1992 there was the so-called towpath alongside the waterway. After this was removed, the ANNA LEONIE built-in 1925-26 could no longer be used, since it still remained without its own engine power. However, it had been moored in front of the Congresshalle in Saarbrücken since the 1960s.

The shipyard of the Schäfer brothers in Völklingen / Luisenthal, Germany received the construction contract for the tugboat from the skipper Johann Kind. He lived on board with his family and named the ship after his two youngest daughters. A son lived on board until his death in 1987. In 2006 the towboat was the last of its kind and should, therefore, be preserved. The Saar Fishing Association was able to buy it in 2007 and take it to a shipyard for repair in 2008. At the end of 2009, an exhibition "Future Ocean" was organized by the Ministry of the Environment, the Kiel Cluster of Excellence “Future Ocean " and the Saar Fishing Association. In the future, the museum and exhibition ship will be used in the Saarland along the Saar.

2020: ANNA LEONIE is a towboat on the Saar and now preserved as a museum ship

The ANNA LEONIE is a "Penische" type river boat. It is 38.76m long and 5.03 m wide, its draft is 30 cm when unladed, maximum 1.80m when loaded. It was built in 1925/26 at the Saarland shipyard of the Gebrüder Schäfer brothers in Völklingen-Luisenthal.
1926 Launched as the ANNA LEONIE.
Tonnage 314.8 grt, cargo capacity 276 ton.
Crew 2

This ship was used for a long time on canals and rivers in the Saarland, in France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland to transport durable food (such as grain, rice, potatoes, sugar), industrial products (coke, coal, ore, etc. .) or for building material (e.g. gravel, sand, building blocks).
When the owner, Johann Kind, died before World War II, the ship became the property of his wife Eugénie, who bequeathed it to their youngest son Ernst Kind in 1942. The ANNA LEONIE escaped the bombing raids on Saarbrücken between early 1941 and February 1945.

Saarbrücken was occupied in 1945 by the Americans (from the right bank) and by the French (from the left bank), to make again a river crossing over the Saar River the Americans built a new bridge. To support the new bridge in the middle two barges were moored midstream to support the midsection of the bridge. The ANNA LEONIE and SYLVIA were used to support the bridge.

The bridge that the Americans had built between the two banks of the Saar for the pedestrians to get from St Johann to the old town of Saarbrücken and back. The two barges were moored side by side in the middle of the river between Dudweilerstrasse and Neumarkt "Kummersteg", which the French called "Sans-Souci" (carefree).
This provisional transition was replaced in 1948 by a pedestrian bridge, which the Saarlanders called "Kummersteg" In 1962, a new bridge was inaugurated there under the name Wilhelm Heinrich Bridge

After the war
After the war, Jean-Eugène Kind, brother of Ernst Kind, found employment in Saarbrücken at the end of 1945. He worked as a foreman at Lagera AG, a wholesaler that had a warehouse with a berth for loading and unloading barges, a huge loading crane, and a connection to rail and road traffic.

ANNA LEONIE moored several times in the eastern quarter near the Lagera, either to deliver fuel, building materials or food or to load it with goods that it transported to cities downstream of the Saar. She also sailed on several other rivers and canals in France as long as towage was still common: in the north on the St. Quentin Canal and in the direction of Paris for the mill operations on the St. Canal.

Inland navigation was motorized in the 1950s on the Saar, The ANNA LEONIE was never motorized, which is why Ernst Kind received fewer and fewer cargo.

In the late 1960s, her voyages became increasingly rare, and finally, she was at anchor, first near the city theater, later at the Old Port of Saarbrücken, opposite the congress hall. There it rusted and rotten completely away. Almost the last Saarland towboat, which was involved in the industrial development of Saarland during the golden 30s, would have been eaten up by rust.

After Ernst Kind died on March 14, 1987, Professor Peter Latz from the University of Munich bought ANNA LEONIE in this condition. He wanted the ship to be honored as a historic monument to river navigation and as the last Saarland towboat to sail on the Saar-Kohl Canal. It was towed from Saarbrücken to the shipyard of the Wirotius brothers in Rilchingen-Hanweiler in 1991 to be restored there.

On Friday, June 17, 2011, after completion of the restoration, the tow ship could be launched below Saargemünd. It retained its original name ANNA LEONIE and its registry: SN 815 SA, a reference to its location in Saarbrücken. To serve as a museum ship of Saar towage shipping and become an attraction for visitors who either want to remember the time when this ship contributed to the economic upswing of the Saarland.

https://www.saar-nostalgie.de/Treidelschifffahrt.htm and Wikipedia.
Saar 1953 3f sg318 scott?, and 1955 18f sg327 and sg360, scott?
Attachments
Anna-Leonie_reihenfolge04_rdax_475x198.jpg
1953 Gersweiler-Bridge.jpg
1955 Gersweiler-Bridge.jpg
1955 gersweiler bridge-Saar_1955_363_Volksbefragung.jpg

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