Abandoned Kansai

After a couple of explorations with family and friends during my summer vacation 2011 it was about time to fly solo for the first time in Germany. The place to go: an abandoned shipyard along the river Rhine in a really nice little town called Germersheim, the city of syringa and the nightingale, just south of the way more famous Speyer. Germersheim was first mentioned in written form in 1090, but it was most likely founded more than a 1000 years prior to that. One of many beautiful small towns in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region.

It was kind of by chance that I stumbled across the place since I never saw it on the usual German urbex blogs and homepages – but the more excited I was about it. So enjoy, dear German urban explorers. While you can…

At first I was actually thinking about calling this location Shipyard G# – but that would have prohibited me from writing about the long and and turbulent history of the Shipyard Germersheim. Founded as “Oberrheinische Schiffswerft Spatz & Co GmbH” (Upper-Rhenish Shipyard Spatz & Co., Ltd.) in 1927 the company was renamed to “Germersheimer Schiffswerft” (Shipyard Germersheim) in 1953 after the “Reederei Reichel & Co” (Shipping Company Reichel & Co.) bought into the dockyard – but for whatever reasons the sign on top of the buildings says “Schiffswerft Germersheim”. In 1989 the company had to file for bankrupcy, but a rescue company with the creative name “Neue Germersheimer Schiffswerft” (New Shipyard Germersheim) was founded. Interesting fact: When Germany granted a guarantee to build two ships it was ordered by Brussels in December of 1990 to withdraw it since the whole procedure was repugnant to the Treaty of Rome (the whole thing was rather complicated, but it had something to do with a development aid project for the benefit of Senegal – we’ll kinda get to that topic later on again…). The new company was nevertheless successful for a couple of years, but finally failed in 2002. In 2009 a few scenes of an episode of the most popular German crime TV show “Tatort” (there is an English Wikipedia entry about the series if you wanna look it up… more than 800 episodes since 1970 – eat that, CSI!) called “Tod auf dem Rhein” (Death on the Rhine) was shot at the abandoned (New) Shipyard Germersheim and broadcasted in early 2010. A guy passing by on his bike told me that there are plans to tear everything down to build some mansions (with marinas, I guess), but nothing has happened yet to my knowledge…

The shipyard started by building inland cargo ships and pusher crafts, but later added tugboats, tankers and passenger ships to their portfolio. In the Spatz years the dockyard was also famous for (and a European leader in) repairing and conversions. More international fame was gained with the towboat Zongwe and the coastal motor vessel Lukuga, both built in pieces at the shipyard in Germersheim and assembled on location at Lake Tanganyika. In 1990, after the reboot, the ferry Le Joola (80 meters long, 12.5 meters wide, designed for 536 passengers and and a crew of 44) was built to cruise the coast of Senegal – one of the biggest ships ever to be built on the Upper-Rhine. 2002 turned out to be a horrible year for both the shipyard and the Le Joola. The ferry capsized and sank off the coast of Senegal, more than 1800 people died while 65 were rescued, making it the second largest naval desaster since World War 2.

I actually didn’t know any of that background when exploring the shipyard on a hot and humid late summer day. The gate to the area with access to the Rhine was wide open, so I had a look at the backside first. Later I spotted some anglers and probably some geocachers at the waterfront, too (there is a cache on the premises or at least very close by… lost places geocaches are becoming more and more popular and people go there with their whole families). Back at the main street I saw that the sliding gate at the entrance and the porter’s office were closed – the door to the management office building was secured by an additional chain with a heavy lock. I decided to have a look at the rest of the area from the outside to think about how to enter, so that’s what I did. After visiting the *Kawaminami Shipyard* just a couple of months prior it was interesting to see a dockyard that survived way longer although it was founded earlier. Some of the construction buildings were very old, probably from the founding days – too bad they were pretty much empty. So was the office building – way more modern, but empty. And moldy! I’m sure the hot and humid day didn’t help, but I could actually feel how it became more difficult to breathe inside of the building – that’s why I kinda hurried to get out of there again.

It’s hard to imagine that once 140 people were planning, constructing and welding ships at this quiet, almost tranquil place. All the machines were gone and about half of the former dockyard area was already taken over by another business – one that continues the metal work and painting: a car tuning and repair shop. (At least that’s what it looked like from the distance, I didn’t get really close to avoid drawing any kind of attention.)

Visiting the Shipyard Germersheim was a great experience overall. Sunny weather, a pretty much unknown and rather unique location with a long history und barely any hazards – it’s good to know that there are still places to uncover back home in Germany…

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Addendum 2014-08-06: Three years later I *revisited the Shipyard Germersheim* – only to find it completely vandalized… 😦