Wasserstrassen: Die Verwaltung von Donau und March 1918-1955

This study looks at the history of those institutions responsible for the expansion, regulation and maintenance of the Danube and March as waterways on Austrian territory from 1918 to 1955, a period of massive economic and political upheaval. Major European rivers such as the Danube have always been of many importance. As long-used transport routes, they were developed in the industrial age by state authorities into modern waterways. The scope of these institutions grew and shrank with the shifting state borders. Organization and tasks have been changed several times, parts of the staff have been repeatedly replaced by the political system changes. A special focus of the study is on the period of The National Socialist rule and the Second World War, marked by the integration into the German Reichswasserstrassenverwaltung, the orientation towards war economic needs and the projects begun with forced labor of the expansion of the Danube into a large waterway.