"Wilhelm Kaisen" - A Container-Terminal is bornback to History
Bremerhaven`s heyday began when the container arrived in Europe
Bremen drew the logical conclusion - While other ports regarded the new box as no more than a temporary vogue from America and decided not to invest in facilities and equipment, Bremen responded immediately to the trend towards more rational cargo handling. Increasingly large ships called for more space and greater water depths.
Looking to Bremerhaven - To begin with, these conditions could be provided by Neustädter Hafen, which had been inaugurated on the left bank of the Weser during the mid-1960s. This is where the first generation of container ships tied up. However, Neustädter Hafen was to prove no more than a temporary station for the steadily growing fully containerised ships, and the harbour planning engineers turned their attention to Bremerhaven.
On the estuary of the Weser, Bremen's municipal port authority first installed four berths with container cranes and loading space behind Nordhafen lock. But that, too, was no more than an interim solution and plans were soon made to build a new quay on the Weser, called "Stromkaje" - the riverside quay - to provide a reliable long-term base for handling the growing container transport sector.
New quay directly on the river mouth - By the beginning of 1971, Bremer Lagerhaus-Gesellschaft (BLG) promised its customers, the shipowners would be able to use the first berth on the Outer Weser for fully containerised vessels. However, technical difficulties cropped up during construction of the quay and played havoc with the time schedule.
To tackle these problems, the Bremen Senate called on the services of 78-year-old Professor Arnold Agatz, and the experienced harbour construction engineer in fact achieved the desired results: the first berth on the Weser was put into service in April 1971.
But that was only the beginning. The new quay on the open river was extended during the course of further expansion phases and by August 1993 had reached a total length of approx. 2.3 kilometres. By 1990, the cargo volume handled at the two terminals, CT I and II, had increased to more than 1.1 million containers (TEU).
CT III - a terminal is born. In response to the steadily growing cargo volume, the decision to tackle expansion project CT III was reached promptly. At the end of 1992, the construction of a retaining wall marked the start of work on CT III, at that time the largest port construction project in Germany. The retaining wall was built 250 metres behind the axis of the future quay. The purpose of this 750-metre long structure was to prevent soil and sediment flowing from the land side into the soil replacement pit.
On 7 October 1994, the planning commissioner of the North-West Regional Directorate for Waterways and Shipping set the official seal under the 178-page design and location approval document, clearing the path for terminal construction.
Expansion of the container terminal continues - On 11 July 1997, Senator Uwe Beckmeyer handed over the first two berths at the new Container Terminal III in Bremerhaven, ready for business.
Today, several years after the inauguration of Container Terminal III and CT IIIa in November 2003, the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen again expanded its world-class port on the mouth of the Weser. Expansion project CT 4 is now completed and provides four more berths for shipping at the riverside quay.
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