Lake Constance is traditionally an international lake
24 December 2021
Lake Constance (Bodensee) has been an important trade route from east to west and south to north for centuries. The Celtic inhabitants left several settlements of pile dwellings as their heritage. Several museums and replicas of these villages can be visited around the lake.
The Romans created the foundation for this region’s economic, religious and urban development from 13. BC onwards. The local inhabitants, including Celtic and Germanic tribes, became Roman citizens. Cities and other settlements, trade, shipping and viticulture flourished in the Pax Romana.
After the Roman era (after the fifth century), Romanised Celts, Alemanni and Franks continued to shape language and culture for centuries. The Frankish kingdoms of the Merovingians and Carolingians, the Duchy of the Alemanni, the Empire of Charlemagne (800-843), the Holy Roman Empire, local rulers and Christianity (from the fourth century onwards) were decisive.
In the fourth century, still during and through the Roman Empire’s structures, Christianity appeared in this region. The Abbey of St Gallen, the Kartause of Ittingen, the episcopal city of Constance and the monastic island of Reichenau depict the close cooperation and contacts from the early Middle Ages onwards.
The famous design (around 810) for the Abbey of St Gallen, for example, comes from the monastery of Reichenau. Monasteries and later secular rulers also had estates on both sides of the present-day borders of Austria, Switzerland, and Germany.
From the 13th and 14th centuries onwards, Swabia (Schwaben), Habsburg, and the (slow) development of the Swiss Confederation played an essential role in this process.
Today, the cantons of Thurgau, St Gallen, and Schaffhausen are the central administrative units on the Swiss side of the lake. In Germany, this region is part of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. To the east, the lake borders Austria.
The border between Germany and Switzerland, or between the EU and Switzerland, is an (imaginary) line running right through the lake (and the Rhine). This border has never effectively hindered (trade and people) traffic, apart from the first half of the 20th century, because of the political situation and two world wars.
In the latter days of World War II, in May 1945, after the German surrender, some German ships on Lake Constance sought refuge in Switzerland, an unobstructed waterway of a few kilometres. In vain, as the (French) occupying forces of Baden-Württemberg successfully requisitioned the ships.
It is regrettable that one of the heroes of the German resistance in World War, George Elser (1903-1945), was arrested in Konstanz of all places after his failed attempt on the Führer on 8 November 1939 in Munich.
The movement of people, goods, ideas and culture has almost always been unimpeded. For George Elser, however, it was a fatal border. Lake Constance, with Meersburg, Bregenz, Lindau, and Friedrichshafen on the German and Austrian sides and Kreuzlingen, Romanshorn, Rorschach, and Arbon on the Swiss side, is still the hub of borderless culture, trade, shipping, and passenger traffic.
Political developments and national borders have not impacted this lake. This richly illustrated edition guides readers through this region’s many cultural-historical treasures, towns, and places.
(Bron: P. Brauns, 101 Orte zum Verweilen und Entdecken, Darmstadt, 2015)