World Heritage: the rough world of the Flößermuckln – Bavaria

Transporting goods and raw materials over long distances was a real challenge in times without railways and automobiles. There was nothing left but to use the waterways, even if it was difficult and dangerous. In this way, rafting has had an intense impact on European economic history. The historian Alfred Wolfsteiner assumes that the rivers of the Upper Palatinate were probably used for rafting as early as around the year 1000. When Schwandorf was first mentioned in 1006, for example, a shipping landing was explicitly mentioned “on the wax-colored Naab”. “Even in the early Middle Ages, the brewing pans for salt production in Bad Reichenhall depended on driftwood from the mountains,” says Wolfsteiner.

Of course, such a drift was a dangerous undertaking, the old chronicles describe dramatic accidents in abundance. In the Upper Bavarian market town of Kraiburg am Inn, the Schlossberg Chapel of St. Georg, which is enthroned on a hill, clearly announces a tragedy. A train loaded with a thousand bushels of grain threatened to crash in 1838 because of a broken rope on a bridge in the Inn. The ship master vowed to build this chapel because of the happy rescue.

A few days ago, Unesco, the cultural organization of the United Nations, included rafting in the international list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Germany had applied for admission together with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Latvia and Spain. Rafting also has a long tradition in Bavaria. “The award is also a sign of special appreciation for the cultural expression of rafting in Bavaria,” said Finance and Homeland Minister Albert Füracker (CSU). The passenger raft trips on the Isar and Loisach from the Oberland to Munich have been listed in the Bavarian State Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2020 – “now they are also internationally recognised,” said Füracker.

Does the city of Amsterdam rest on stilts from the Franconian Forest?

Above all, the wet and happy leisure time pleasure of rafting on the Isar dominates the public image of rafting today. This tradition was widespread throughout Bavaria, especially in the Upper Palatinate and in Upper Franconia it flourished. There, however, it was less about entertaining tourists than about transporting wood. In the Franconian Forest, for example, so much wood was once felled that it was transported on the Wilden Rodach and on the Rodach to the Main and then on the Rhine to Holland. The city of Amsterdam rests on pillars from the Franconian Forest, one learns when one contacts members of the Wallenfels rafters’ community in the old rafters’ district of Kronach.

How rafting fed the Franconian Forest and its inhabitants for over 800 years – until the last commercial trip in 1958 – can be vividly experienced in the rafting museum in Unterrodach (Kronach district). There you can learn a lot of shocking things about the dangerous everyday life in that time, in which mill owners up to the poor raft boy made their living from rafting. For the people in the valleys of the Franconian Forest, it was often the only way to earn a living alongside woodcutting. The trunks were dragged into the Franconian streams and rivers, later they were then tied together on the Rhine to form huge wooden colossuses up to 400 meters long.

Five liters of beer a day – the raftsmen insisted on that

“Downriver iron, upstream salt, that was the trade of the Upper Palatinate.” This motto of the Amberg schoolchildren on the history of shipping on the Naab and Vils names two other important products that were transported there until 1826. Alfred Wolfsteiner shows in an essay in the recently published book “On old paths through the Upper Palatinate” (Pustet Verlag) that other goods were also transported on Regen, Naab and Vils in addition to wood. In addition, in the 18th and 19th centuries, many emigrants traveled down to the Banat on rafts, and rafts were also used for military transport.

Open detailed view

A rough job brings with it rough customs. The raftsmen were credited with fearlessness, a willingness to fight, and a hard drinker, which makes sense given the hard work and dangers involved. When the meltwater swelled in spring, joining the logs on the water was particularly tiring. If a raft man fell into cold water, his clothes would freeze immediately, but he still had to keep working. In return, the men were entitled to a pound of meat and five liters of beer a day. They adamantly insisted. In the raftsmen’s museum one learns that the raftsmen had claimed their rights in court after they were only given milk instead of beer. The publicist Franz Xaver Bronner described in the 19th century how dangerous their work was: “For a long way the beaters drive on the slippery trunks, standing and balancing with the hook. One misstep or slipping – and death is certain in the wild hustle and bustle .”

The old rafter song also speaks volumes: “I’m out of the woods / Da Floßamuckl / And whoever looks at me scheelly / Has a bang on my buck!” The school children cheekily called out to the apprentices, who were called Fluderer at the time: “Fluderer men / with da long Stanga / with a short handle / all of you are going to Hell!”

Open detailed view

In 1863, the amount of wood transported on the Regen was 35,000 tons. At that time, however, the railroad began to displace the old rafting trade because it made it easier and faster to transport the trunks. Rafting and the skills associated with it threatened to fall into oblivion after the Second World War. At a meeting in 1968, former raftsmen came up with the idea of ​​organizing a display raft trip on the Wilden Rodach. Since then, the Wallenfels Rafting Community has been offering raft trips in the summer. It is unavoidable that the participants are soaking wet at the end of the wild ride. Only one, so the story goes in Wallenfels, actually managed to stay dry. He completed the trip on the raft in a handstand.